Tag: restoration

Commercial Fishers Angling for Trout Fishing Rights

  • Steve Dahl is one of about 25 commercial fishers on the North Shore of Lake Superior. Dahl makes a modest living selling herring, but he'd like to be able to fish for lake trout too. When he's fishing for herring, Dahl pulls his gill net up and passes it across his boat, plucking herring from the mesh. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)

Some fish populations in the Great Lakes have recovered dramatically from the devastating pollution of the last century. But the very health of the fishery presents a new set of challenges for people. Who gets to catch the fish? Most states favor sport anglers, but some commercial fishing operations are asking for a bigger share. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Transcript

Some fish populations in the Great Lakes have recovered dramatically from the
devastating pollution of the last century. But the very health of the fishery presents a
new set of challenges for people. Who gets to catch the fish? Most states favor sport
anglers, but some commercial fishing operations are asking for a bigger share. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:


(sound: engine zooms, slows)


Steve Dahl guides his aluminum boat to his gill net, anchored below the waves of Lake
Superior. He fishes out of Knife River, a small town just up the shore from Duluth
Minnesota. A few feet at a time, the net offers up its catch – slender silver herring
caught by the gills.


“The mesh actually has a little bit of flex to it. That’s why I can squeeze them out. One
that’s too big or fat, you have to back it out, so you don’t harm the flesh.”


The openings in the net are just right to catch herring. Too small for lake trout. Dahl
isn’t allowed to catch lake trout anyway. He says they mostly just bounce off the net.


When the net is empty, about 40 herring – each of them about a pound – are lying in a tub
at the bottom of the boat.


Dahl is working hard for these fish. It’s pretty cold, and the wind is gusting.


(ambient sound)


Dahl says sometimes the current is so strong, he can’t pull the net up out of the water.
Sometimes there are no fish in the net. In the
summer, they move around and they’re hard to find. And of course, he can’t fish when
the lake is frozen.


But he loves this life.


“I get to be outside all the time, my own boss. It’s great fun.”


Steve Dahl sells his catch to the restaurants and fish houses that dot the North Shore of
Lake Superior. He makes his living this way. He says he doesn’t make a lot of money,
but it’s a good life.


Dahl says the money would be better if he were allowed to fish for lake trout. He figures
he’d be able to make several thousand dollars more a year if he could catch even just a
few hundred lake trout.


“That’s all we’re asking for is to be able to supply the local restaurants through the peak
tourist season.”


Lake trout were almost wiped out by over-fishing and by the parasitic sea lamprey in the
1960’s and 70’s. The lamprey are under control now, and decades of stocking lake trout
have brought the population back up. People who fish for sport have been catching more
and more lake trout. Last year, they caught about 15,000 of the fish on the Minnesota
side of Lake Superior. But so far the state of Minnesota won’t allow commercial fishers
to go after them. Neither will Michigan, although Wisconsin and Ontario do.


Don Schreiner manages the Lake Superior fishery for Minnesota. He says restoring the
lake trout population is taking a long time. That’s why they don’t want to open it up to
commercial fishing just yet.


“Right now we’re pretty cautious, we’ve just started kinda pulling back on stocking and it
seems a little premature to start thinking about opening the door for commercial
fisheries.”


Next year, Minnesota plans to create a new ten-year plan for the fish in its Lake Superior
waters. Don Schreiner says during the planning process, everyone will be able to have
their say. But sport anglers far outnumber the two dozen or so commercial fishermen on
the North Shore. So they’ll need to find allies in their claim on the lake trout.


Paul Bergman is likely to speak up in favor of commercial fishing for lake trout. He
owns the Vanilla Bean Bakery & Café in Two Harbors, Minnesota. He buys herring from
Steve Dahl. He says half his customers order fish, and they love it when it’s locally
caught.


“People really do come up here for the native fish on the North Shore, so we’re getting so
many more repeat customers now from the cities. More and more are asking for the fish.”


Bergman puts a sign in the window when he has fresh herring, and he says it pulls people
in. He’d like to be able to do the same with lake trout.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

Related Links

Parks Dig Up Sediment Solution

  • A crane dredges sediment from the bottom of the Illinois River. The mud is loaded onto a barge bound for Chicago - to turn a brownfield into a park. (Photo courtesy of Illinois Waste Management and Research Center)

Soil is being washed from farmland and construction sites. The soil clogs up many rivers and lakes around the Great Lakes region. It can harm plants and aquatic wildlife in the waterways. The sediment can also fill the channels and harbors, blocking ship traffic. But a pilot program in one Great Lakes state is using the sediment in a new way. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:

Transcript

Soil is being washed from farmland and construction sites. The soil clogs up many rivers
and lakes around the Great Lakes region. It can harm plants and aquatic wildlife in the
waterways. The sediment can also fill the channels and harbors, blocking ship traffic.
But a pilot program in one Great Lakes state is using the sediment in a new way. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:


The Illinois River used to be an average of more than twenty feet deep. These days, the
river averages a depth of about two feet. The river stretches nearly from Chicago across
the state of Illinois and joins the Mississippi near St. Louis. The entire length of the
Illinois River is clogged with sediment that’s eroded mostly from farmland. Besides
blocking navigation, the sediment buries aquatic plants, destroying a food source for fish
and waterfowl.


(sound of a dredger)


A giant dredger is taking deep bites into the muck beneath the water’s surface that’s
clogging up the bottom of the river near Peoria. The bright orange clamshell bucket is
filling up barges that will take 100,000 tons of sediment to Chicago. There, it will be
used to cover up the remains of an old steel plant and create 17 acres of parkland.


Bob Foster is a project manager with the Chicago Park District. He says the steel mill
site is useless without the sediment from the Illinois River:


“What’s left there now is several foundations and forty feet of slag. It’s pretty hard to
plant trees in forty feet of slag. This project would not be happening unless we were
receiving this soil, this dredged material, because soil is our number one cost in park
development now.”


State and federal officials say this idea helps both the Illinois River by clearing out
sediment… and the city of Chicago by providing topsoil for a park. The program also has
the support of environmentalists, although they do sound a word of caution.


Marc Miller is an environmentalist who serves on the Illinois River Coordinating
Council, a group of public and private organizations trying to help the river. He supports
the dredging program, but says it would be better if the government, farmers and
developers would do more to stop soil erosion.


“That’s why the Illinois Coordinating Council has many irons in the fire in addressing
these issues. It’s going to take prevention in order to stop the kind of problems that have
been going on for decades.”


This kind of program won’t work everywhere. John Marlin is with the Illinois
Department of Natural Resources. He’s done a lot of studies on the possible uses for
dredged material. But, because some sediment is contaminated with pesticides or old
factory pollution, you have to test the muck and know where it’s going to be used.


“There are definitely places where the soil in the lakes and the Illinois River is too
polluted to use. But there are other places where it is clean, and one of our jobs is going
to be to find out where it is clean and safe to use and make judgments accordingly. There
will be a lot more questions as time goes on.”


But public officials behind this project are concentrating solely on the positives of the
project. Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn told supporters at a rally on the banks of the
Illinois River that the dredging program will be the beginning of a much larger program
that will benefit several states.


“This is a model, we want to replicate it, we want to do it elsewhere. We are open for
business. If you need topsoil somewhere, we got it. (laughter) And by digging up the
sediment and making the river a little deeper, we can help our fish, our wildlife, our
waterfowl, we can help our boating, our recreation.”


To have any significant impact on the Illinois River, this kind of dredging program will
have to be expanded exponentially. This first project will remove 100,000 tons of
sediment. Each year more than 14 million tons of sediment is washed into the Illinois
River basin.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.

Related Links

Record Beach Closings on Lake Michigan

A new report shows Lake Michigan beaches were closed a record number of times last year. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams has more:

Transcript

A new report shows Lake Michigan beaches were closed a record number of times last
year. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams has more:


The Lake Michigan Federation says communities in the basin reported more than 1400
beach closings last year. It’s the most the group has recorded in seven years.


Joel Brammeier is the Federation’s acting executive director. He says many local health
officials are expanding their beach testing programs. Last summer, that meant more
beach closings.


“The monitoring and understanding the levels of contamination is the first step towards
restoring confidence in Great Lakes beaches. To keep that confidence up, that
contamination has to be eliminated so people can access those beaches whenever they
want to.”


Brammeier says Great Lakes beaches continue to be polluted by animal and human
waste. He says while beach testing is improving, most communities need a lot of money
to clean up those pollution sources.


That money could come from Congress. The Senate and House are debating bills calling
for four to six billion dollars for Great Lakes cleanup and restoration.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Farm to Wetlands Program to Be Scaled Back?

A popular federal program that pays farmers to restore wetlands on their property is underfunded in President Bush’s budget proposal. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein has more:

Transcript

A popular federal program that pays farmers to restore wetlands on their property is underfunded
in President Bush’s budget proposal. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein
has more:


The 2002 Farm Bill called for turning 250,000 acres a year of marginal farmland into wetlands.
Wetlands on farms help control pesticide run-off, replenish aquifers, and provide wildlife habitat.
And the effort gives farmers some extra cash in lean times. The Bush Administration wants to
downsize the program by 50,000 acres a year. But critics say it’s too popular to reduce.


“For every acre that gets enrolled, there are five acres waiting to get enrolled.”


Julie Sibbing is the wetlands policy specialist for the National Wildlife Federation. She says millions
of acres of wetlands nationwide are under threat from development. And farm conservation
programs are a crucial way to preserve them.


“There’s been a lot of talk about how the farm programs have expanded under the Bush
Administration. It’s really not been the great expansion that we would have liked to have seen.”


Last year, the program helped convert 213,000 acres of unused farmland into wetlands, short of the
250,000 acre goal.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m David Sommerstein.

Related Links

A Good Turn for Terns

  • Researcher Lee Harper bands a common tern. Photo by David Sommerstein.

The common tern is a bird best known for its graceful flight and dramatic dives. Over the past 50 years, its best nesting habitat in the Great Lakes has been taken over by more aggressive birds, like gulls, cormorants, and osprey. Today, common terns are a threatened species in New York and Minnesota, and monitored carefully in other states. A couple years ago, a biologist and some volunteers used gravel and navigational buoys on the St. Lawrence River to create artificial nesting habitats for the terns. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports on the experiment’s progress:

Transcript

The Common Tern is a bird best known for its graceful flight and dramatic dives. Over the
past 50 years, its best nesting habitat in the Great Lakes has been taken over by more
aggressive birds, like gulls, cormorants, and osprey. Today, common terns are a
threatened species in New York and Minnesota, and monitored carefully in other states. A
couple years ago, a biologist and some volunteers used gravel and navigational buoys on
the St. Lawrence River to create artificial nesting habitats for the terns. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports on the experiment’s progress:


The St. Lawrence isn’t just a river – it’s a seaway – an aquatic interstate for ocean freighters rumbling into the Great Lakes. So it’s not strange.


I’m in a boat floating just upstream from one of the river’s highway signs, a seaway
navigation marker.


We’re not talking about a plastic buoy – it’s a fixed concrete column rising 8 feet above the
water. Its platform is big enough that you can walk around on it. On top, a tall steel tower holds a red light and signs that serve as channel markers for the seaway traffic. But for the conservationists I’m tagging along with, this is bird habitat. We sit in silence and listen to the call of the Common Tern.


(tern squawking in the clear)


Dozens of small white birds with pointy wings and black caps swoop above our heads.
They soar, suspended, then suddenly dive into the water. Their orange beaks snap at
minnows just below the surface, then they shoot back up into the air.


(more squawks)


This particular colony was formerly the largest and most productive Common Tern
colony on the entire lower Great Lakes.


Biologist Lee Harper is known as “the tern guy” in this part of the Great Lakes. He’s
tagged thousands of them and recorded them as far away as Brazil. He documented the
common tern’s dramatic decline over the past twenty years. Gull and osprey populations
exploded, displacing the more sensitive terns from their nesting sites. But today Harper
peers through binoculars and grins.


“The terns we’re seeing here today represent the first nests on this site in almost ten
years.”


Terns don’t need much to nest, just a dry, isolated spot near water. Harper noticed the
refugee terns were retreating to navigation markers like this one. They’d lay eggs on its
concrete platform. The problem was the eggs would roll around and the birds would abandon
them. So Harper enlisted volunteers to lug 5 tons of gravel out here. They spread it on the
platform so the terns would lay their eggs on top of the gravel and the eggs wouldn’t roll.
Suzie Wood was among them.


“The first time I saw it, it was a piece of concrete and I frankly thought that Lee was a
little bit cracked when I heard about it.”


That was two summers ago. Today’s the first day the volunteers have returned. They’re
going to count nests and eggs to see how the gravel is working.


(motor sound, then clanking and action sound as we tie up)


We inch the boat up to the marker and huddle under the canvas top in case the birds dive-
bomb our approach. Then we tie up to an iron ladder that leads up to the concrete
platform. One by one, we climb the ladder and peer over the platform’s rim.


“Wow, this is a beautiful nest right here.”


Lee Harper is right behind and he’s beaming.


“After ten years of no terns here, this is really a wonderful sound!”


Almost invisible amongst the gravel and weeds are clusters of brown spotted eggs. We
walk on tip toe, look before every step, careful not to crush a nest. Harper works quickly
to minimize the disturbance. He calls out the number of eggs he sees. A volunteer takes
notes on a clipboard.


(counting)


Harper was here two weeks ago and counted 18 nests. Today there are 40 common tern
nests. Volunteer David Duff is impressed.


“It was just such a simple thing to do. I mean, a hundred twenty dollars worth of gravel
and a two or three hours and half a dozen people helping with five gallon buckets of gravel
and I think we have a victory, at least a preliminary victory.”


The gravel nests are starting to catch on. The St. Lawrence Seaway Development
Corporation is spreading gravel on navigation markers all along the Seaway. Groups in
Michigan are planning similar restoration efforts, using dredging spoils from the St. Mary’s
River. They’re man-made solutions, but ones that just might restore the Common Tern
population to health in the Great Lakes.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m David Sommerstein.

Fishing Relics Fading Away

Fishing boats that once braved Lake Superior storms now sit idle and deteriorating on the shore of a small village. Some of the local folks believe the remnants of the village’s fishing past should be preserved. Others wonder if some relics of our past should simply be allowed to slowly fade away. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson has more:

Transcript

Fishing boats that once braved Lake Superior storms now sit idle and
deteriorating on the shore of a small village. Some of the local folks
believe the remnants of the village’s fishing past should be preserved.
Others wonder if some relics of our past shouldn’t simply be allowed to
slowly fade away? The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson
has more:


(soft sounds of waves)


This quiet, sandy beach in Wisconsin’s northernmost village of Cornucopia is
left with a few hints of its past. Three gray wooden fishing boats sit in
disrepair on the sand dunes…boats that were part of this harbor’s fleet of
25 vessels when the Lake Superior fishing industry was at its peak. These
days, the cool mornings are disturbed only by a town meeting of seagulls…


(seagulls)


They’re waiting for the lone fishing boat to return for a late
breakfast.


(fishing boat engine)


The 44-foot steel hulled Courtney Sue is the last of the fishing boats in
Cornucopia. Brothers Mark and Cliff Halverson continue a family
tradition…bringing in the day’s catch.


“How was the catch?”


“Good enough for what we needed today.”


(sound of boxes sliding onto dock)


“These are lawyers, this is a trout, and the rest are whitefish. Been kind of slow
this year. Gonna pick up, but the water’s real cold yet. The fish are still out deep.”


(sound of sharpening knives)


With sharpened knives, the Halversons gut the fish so fast that the catch
continue to flop about even after filleting.


(sound of slitting fish)


“Been doing it for quite a few years. (slop, slop) Takes awhile
to get used to handling ’em (slop).”


These men are the last of their kind in town. The rest of the fishermen who
sailed on boats like the three beached relics have either left Cornucopia,
retired or died.


Fishing peaked in 1955. Then, it became a casualty of over-fishing and the
invasion of the sea lamprey…a life-sucking eel with no natural enemy in the Great
Lakes. It devastated the fishing.


(fishermen playing cribbage)


Most days you can find 64-year-old “Snooks” Johnson and 74-year-old Harold
Ehlers among a friendly game of cribbage at Corny’s Village Inn.


“Sorry, Harold.”


“Well, you’re gonna get better, I know.”


“Well, I can’t get any worse (laughs).”


Ehler’s family has owned the town general store since 1915. He remembers
the men and women who made fishing their livelihood from the 1920’s till
the 50’s.


“I have to say they were very independent people. They just depended on their skill to make a living.”


Harold Ehler’s store played a critical role…making sure fish got to the
market fresh, and for good prices.


“So their market was mainly in Chicago… my dad spent most of his noon hour
on the phone, which wasn’t that great in those days. Selling the fish. Then we’d go down and tag ’em, put them on a truck and take them to the railroad station in Ashland and so they’d get there the next morning.”


(sound of waves)


The old wooden boats now weathering on the beach are just about all that’s
left of that heritage. Battered letters spell out “The Eagle,” “Ruby,” and
“Twin Sisters.” Some people in Cornucopia hope to save the old boats from
the ravages of Lake Superior. “Snooks” Johnson’s family operated “Twin
Sisters”…and he joined the crew as a teenager in 1955…the last good year.


“Yeah it looks kinda sad, doesn’t it? How it got its name, my Dad’s brother had
twin daughters so that’s what the “Twin Sisters” came from. It was a pretty good boat.”


Johnson says these homemade wooden boats were plenty seaworthy…with lots
of room for fish and a crew of four or five.
“But they all rolled and I’d always get seasick when I was on the thing. Because
when it was rough weather and you took the fish in and piled them up on the
bow so they wouldn’t roll too much, because the bow would keep them confined.
And you had a stove that burned coal just for heat. Someone would start cookin’.
So you would have the engine smells, the coal smells and the half-cooked fish
smells. I spent quite a bit of my time sticking my head out that gangway right
there to chum the fish.”


Johnson says remembers Tom Jones, the builder of these boats. The oldest
dates back to 1927. The others were built in 1935 and 1940.


“What he would do is make half a boat, a model. He’d say well
this is the way you guys want it or whoever one like this, or one like
that. They’d agree on it and that’s how it would turn out. I think he had
about a third or fourth grade education, but he was brilliant. Nobody really
knows how to work on them anymore.”


When Tom Jones passed away, so did the know-how of restoring these boats.
Now, protected only by a rope to keep people from climbing onboard, these
remnants of a more prosperous day slowly decay.


A “Save the Boats” committee was formed, but recently dissolved. This
village of 50 people just doesn’t have enough resources, says the former
co-chair of “Save the Boats,” Phyllis Johnson. She hopes somebody someday
does something for the boats…


“It’ll be as a result of someone saying, “Hey, those boats are lookin’ pretty shabby, aren’t you gonna get the young people around, have them work on them or something.”


But nothing has happened yet. Not even so much as a coat of paint protects
the boats. The sterns and hulls are cracked open. Only one boat has a
propeller. Johnson would like to do something, but she’s realistic.


“In the end they’re going to go back to nature. They’re not going to float again, never. But as a part of heritage, it’s probably better to keep them in as good as shape as we can keep them as long as we can.”


Snooks Johnson says as each season takes its toll on the old boats, it’s
likely preservation isn’t in the cards.


“I don’t know, I kind of like to see it just the way it is.
fishing went to hell, and so do the boats. So they’re kind of following
suit and they’ll still last a long time I guess. I don’t know, a lot of
memories.”


But there are fewer and fewer people to share those memories remaining in
Cornucopia. And fewer people to worry about the fate of the old fishing
boats.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mike Simonson.


(sound of seagulls)

President’s Great Lakes Plan Too Weak?

The Bush administration’s new strategy to improve the environment of the Great Lakes is being eyed with skepticism by some of the environmental groups in the basin. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

The Bush administration’s new strategy to improve the environment of the Great Lakes is being eyed with skepticism by some of the environmental groups in the basin. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

The White House’s new Great Lakes Strategy was announced by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Whitman as a “shared, long-range vision” for the Great Lakes. It includes a timeline for cleaning up contaminated areas, goals for reducing PCBs in fish, making sure it’s safe to swim at beaches more often, and restoring sensitive environmental areas. But an international coalition of environmental groups and others, Great Lakes United, says the Bush administration’s strategy doesn’t offer anything binding and offers no additional money. Margaret Wooster is the group’s Executive Director.

“We’d be happier if there was more of a strategy here for overcoming the obstacles that have in front of us. We can only be hopeful that some of these goals will be met.”

But Wooster adds, without more direction from the administration on how to meet the goals, it will be left to the people of the Great Lakes basin to prod the government to meet its goals.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Charting a Course for the ‘Big Muddy’

  • A recent National Academy of Sciences report on the Missouri River suggested some of the river's natural meanders and access to the flood plain be restored. It also suggested sections of the river be reviewed to see if barge traffic might be closed for parts of the year or permanently.

The National Academy of Sciences has issued a report that calls for the restoration of the longest river in the United States. That report says the government needs to stop studying problems along the Missouri River and – with the help of residents – do something about them. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has the story:

Transcript

The National Academy of Sciences has issued a report that calls for the restoration of the longest river in the United States. That report says the government needs to stop studying problems along the Missouri River and – with the help of residents – do something about them. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

On the opposite bank from here, you can see the Big Muddy empty into the Mississippi River. I’m standing on the spot where Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery spent the winter before starting their historic expedition up the Missouri, across the Rockies and to the Pacific coast. If Lewis and Clark could see the Missouri today, there’s little that they’d recognize at this end of the river. Over the years it’s been straightened, walled-in by levees and channelized. Its braided river system of meanders, backwaters and eddies, once alive with wildlife are – for the most part – gone.

Seventy years ago as the government began huge civil engineering projects; it expected the Missouri River to be a major transportation means of getting grain from the farm fields of Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and Missouri to the markets. But as it’s turned out, almost all of the grain from those states is moved to market by truck or rail or in Missouri’s case on the Mississippi River. Only a tiny fraction less than one-half of one-percent of all the grain harvested in those states is moved by barge on the Missouri River.

According to the Army Corps of Engineers, barge traffic on the Missouri benefits the economy by saving about seven million dollars in transportation costs. But some years the Army Corps of Engineers spends that much maintaining the lower Missouri as a navigable river, and the taxpayers foot the bill.

The National Academy of Sciences – the NAS – was instructed to study the Missouri River and determine the best uses of the river and its flood plain. Stephen Gloss was the chair of the committee that wrote the final report. He says one thing’s certain; the condition of the Missouri River has been studied to death. Its problems are well documented.

“The people should understand the Missouri River ecosystem is in a significant state of decline. There’s been a lot of degradation of the ecological properties of the system. There’s ample scientific evidence to credibly demonstrate that and there doesn’t need to be any more research done to make that credible. The most important thing is to undertake some immediate action.”

The NAS report suggested that the people of the states along the Missouri River should start figuring out where some of the Missouri’s meanders could be replaced and where it could be allowed back into its old flood plain.

At a town hall meeting in Columbia, Missouri, three of the authors of the study, including Stephen Gloss, met recently with representatives of the barge industry, agriculture and government agencies along the Missouri River and with the public. A farmer from Oregon, Missouri, Lanny Meng, told the NAS committee members he’s heard this kind of talk for several years, and he didn’t much like it.

“When they talk about meanders of the Missouri channel and they talk about connectivity with the flood plain. And that flood plain’s my cornfield.”

“Well, I think that the flow change and the management change of the Missouri River’s gonna have a drastic negative affect on my farming practice, and my neighbor’s farming practice and my county. Things will change badly for our community?”

The farmers are not the only ones concerned about change on the Missouri River. The barge industry, which depends on keeping the water level artificially high and the channel deep doesn’t believe there’s enough water to keep the reservoirs full in the upper Missouri, make new diversions for wildlife backwaters and meanders, and keep the barges floating.

Chris Bescia is with the barge industry group Midwest Area River Coalition 2000, better known as MARC-2000.

“So, when the National Academy of Science report says that we want to have more cuts and alluvial deviations in the river, when they say that we want to re-connect the flood plain, when they say all these things, that’s essentially taking out the channel training structures that are designed to maintain a nine foot channel.”

Which the barges need to push their cargo up and down stream.

The NAS report indicates that the people along the river and the state and federal agencies that have authority can find a balance between the commercial and agricultural interests and that of those who want better hunting, fishing, or simply better habitat for the sake of the wildlife and the natural beauty.

Chad Smith is with the environmental group American Rivers. He says it will take some compromises, but it can be done.

“The Missouri is not even close to living up to its potential. And we’re missing out on a lot of quality of life benefits, but also on a lot of economic benefits by managing this river as a ditch and not as a river.”

Smith stresses that no one is calling for the end of barge traffic on the Missouri, or wants the end of farming in the flood plain. But Smith says there’s been just a little too much development of the river, and we need to restore parts of it here and there.

The chief author of the National Academy of Sciences report, Steven Gloss, says that work needs to begin quickly because it will take a very long time to fix the Missouri River’s problems.

“We’ve been at this for a long time, a hundred years or better and, you know, it’s gonna take several decades to get it back a little bit in the other direction. I think we really need to look at this as a long-term sustained process. It’s not something we can find a solution for in five years and walk away from it. We need to be at this for the rest of our lives and for future generations.”

But Gloss stresses this cannot be a job for the government alone. The NAS report says the Missouri can only find balance between the competing interests if the people along the Missouri River all have a seat at the table and share in the river’s wealth.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Sowing Seeds to Restore a Wetland

  • This levy currently separates the biggest farm in Illinois (on the left) from the floodwaters of the Illinois River (on the right). The Nature Conservancy is planning to turn the 7,600 acre farm into one of the biggest Midwest wetland restoration projects ever.

Lost wetlands are restored for a number of reasons. Sometimes, they replace a wetlands area lost because of construction or farming. Typically those projects are small in scope. Now a conservation group is looking to create an entire ecosystem in the Midwest through a massive wetland restoration program. The plan is garnering attention from scientists as a new model for how to return land to its natural state. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:

Transcript

Lost wetlands are restored for a number of reasons. Sometimes they replace a wetlands area lost somewhere else because of construction or agriculture. But typically these projects are small in scope. Now a conservation group is looking to create an entire ecosystem in the Midwest through a massive wetland restoration program. The plan is garnering attention from scientists as a new model for how to return land to its natural state. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports.


(Ambient sound – the farm)


Tractors are rolling across the Wilder farm in Central Illinois, tending to fields lined with rows of corn and soybeans. This plot of land is 76-hundrd acres, or nearly twelve square miles. It’s the biggest farm in the entire state. But it won’t be a farm for much longer. The Nature Conservancy has purchased the land, and hopes to make the area one of the biggest Midwest wetland restoration projects ever. The group hopes the Emiquon Wildlife Refuge will make improvements to the land ranging from creating a new stop for migrating birds, to improving the quality of the Illinois River that is the source of drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people. Joy Zedler is an Ecology Professor at the University of Wisconsin. She says the size of this project creates a unique opportunity to reintroduce extinct plants once native to the area.


“If you have a wetland the size of this table, and you want to restore an endangered species, very likely you wont be able to find the right conditions to support it. But if you have 7600 acres, somewhere in that site may well be the combination of conditions that can support that species.”


Zedler says bringing native plants back to the area can provide food and habitat for a variety of animals and insects that were once native to that region, and improve the health of the region’s ecosystem for miles in every. One major advantage Emiquon has is the entire farm is surrounded by a levy. That means one hole in the levy could allow the area to be a contained flood plain for the river. Rip Sparks is a professor at the University of Illinois. He says allowing that to happen has the potential to bring a wide variety of plants and animals back to the river area. That’s because it would create a seasonal flood plain.


“The spring flood lasts long enough that the organisms have adapted to utilize it for spawning and feeding areas. And the birds have used it as feeding areas as they make their migrations. So it seems very important that river be connected to the flood plain.”


But not everyone is excited about the plans to turn Emiquon into a wetland. Tom Edwards is an activist who has studied the Illinois River region for decades. He is one of several environmentalists that say all of the excitement about the project is mis-founded. Edwards says the waters of the nearby Illinois River are so polluted, that if one drop becomes part of the Emiquon site, all the talk of reintroducing native plant and animal species will become moot.


“Nothing on the Illinois River has any vegetation on it. It’s a toxic waste. The fish can hardly survive. If they let the river water in, it will create another mud hole. It’s not a way to cleanse the river, and we would lose a valuable asset for the future.”


Edwards says Emiquon can be a separate, stand alone lake that protects some wildlife and plants. But he says it will never be the grand experiment in wetland restoration that some claim it will be. Many scientists counter Edward’s argument by pointing out that wetlands can be excellent filters for pollutants, and improve the quality of nearby bodies of water. And the Nature Conservancy says it is aware of the challenges of creating a wetland so close to a less than healthy river. And that, says the Conservancy’s Michael Rueter, is what makes this site ideal. Because it’s enclosed by levies, whatever is done here can be reversed. If opening the site to the river causes problems, the levy can simply be closed up again, and something else can be tried.


“Any action that we take will be reversible. So we’re not taking down levies or lowering the heights of levies. Because we want to be able to reverse this and adapt as we learn more information.”


Rueter says one option would be to install a gate in the levy, so they could control the amount of water that comes into Emiquon. Scientists could than closely monitor the effect of adding River water to the site. Reuter says the Nature Conservancy hasn’t decided how it will approach restoring the site just yet. The group has time to think about it. Part of the purchase agreement gives the former owners the right to continue to farm the land for up to five more years. But when it does become a restoration project, it will likely have the attention of activists and researchers around all of the Midwest. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.

SOWING SEEDS TO RESTORE a WETLAND (Short Version)

  • This levy currently separates the biggest farm in Illinois (on the left) from the floodwaters of the Illinois River (on the right). The Nature Conservancy is planning to turn the 7,600 acre farm into one of the biggest Midwest wetland restoration projects ever.

A conservation group is planning a wetland restoration project that will be one of the biggest ever in the Midwest. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl has more:

Transcript

A conservation group is planning a wetland restoration project that will be one of the biggest ever in the Midwest. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:


The Nature Conservancy has purchased the biggest farm in Illinois, and is planning to convert the land into a wetland. The seventy six hundred acre plot of land in Central Illinois is attracting attention from researchers from around the region. Joy Zedler is an Ecology professor at the University of Wisconsin. She says the project will be significant.


“That fact that it is large already puts it on the map. And the fact that we could experiement with reintroducing rare species and finding the conditions that facilitate their growth is exciting.”


The Nature Conservancy is facing some challenges with the project that is less than a half a mile from the Illinois River. Critics say the polluted waters of the river will make it nearly impossible to recreate a natural wetland. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.