FIGHT FOR AMERICA’S LONGEST RIVER (Part 3)

  • Finding a balance between natural habitat and commerce on America's rivers is causing problems. (Photo by Lester Graham)

When Lewis and Clark traveled up the Missouri River 200 years ago, they
recorded the abundant wildlife they saw along their way. Fur trapping was a
thriving industry on Frontier Rivers. But it took another 100 years of over-hunting
for the US to realize it was wiping out its wildlife. Today, conservation,
commerce and tourism all intersect on the nation’s big rivers. Each of those
industries relies on a steady supply of water. In the last of three reports, Kevin
Lavery looks at how all of those interests share – and struggle – over water:

Transcript

When Lewis and Clark traveled up the Missouri River 200 years ago, they
recorded the abundant wildlife they saw along their way. Fur trapping was a
thriving industry on Frontier Rivers. But it took another 100 years of over-hunting
for the US to realize it was wiping out its wildlife. Today, conservation,
commerce and tourism all intersect on the nation’s big rivers. Each of those
industries relies on a steady supply of water. In the last of three reports, Kevin
Lavery looks at how all of those interests share – and struggle – over water:


The Missouri River is known as the Big Muddy. Sure, it’s muddy at its mouth
where it joins the Mississippi River near St. Louis. But a thousand miles
upstream, the Missouri cuts a gleaming blue ribbon through Bismarck, North
Dakota. It looks like paradise to Mike Peluso… and with a broad smile, he rushes
his boat smack into the middle of it.


Peluso grew up fishing on this river. It’s a place brimming with history. Lewis
and Clark camped here in 1804. As he’s fishing, Peluso points to a frontier-era
fort that now sits within a state park:


“That’s actually where Custer started off, right up there before he went to his final… Here’s
a bite!”


Peluso lands a 4-pound walleye. It’s the most abundant fish species in the upper
Missouri system, and he wants to keep it that way:


“Just going to let her go down. You know, hopefully my kids at some point in time will get
to enjoy the same thing I just did. (SPLASH). Oh yeah… she took off. Perfect.”


Fishing on the Missouri River is crucial to North Dakota’s economy. In the 1950’s
the Army Corps of Engineers dammed the Missouri River 80 miles north of
Bismarck. The formation of Lake Sakakawea gave rise to a 150 million dollar
annual recreation industry.


That industry largely exists because of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The
Garrison Dam National Fish Hatchery breeds 80% of the state’s game fish.
There’s about 70 million walleye eggs in one building alone. But officials here
also care for fish that are never meant to be caught.


Rob Holm is with the Fish and Wildlife Service. He watches several pallid
sturgeons circling an 8,000 gallon tank. Each five-foot fish weighs about 60
pounds. The pallid has survived for 70 million years. But Holm says threats to
its habitat have made it an endangered species:


“If we can change things just enough to give them a fighting chance, I think it’s a good
thing. They’ve been around since the time of the dinosaurs. If we miss a beat on it now…
they’re not going to be there in 10 years.”


The pallid sturgeon was harvested for its caviar before it was federally protected.
But illegal catches still happen. Environmental groups see the pallid as a
barometer that gauges the overall health of the Missouri River. Chad Smith runs
the Nebraska field office of American Rivers:


“We lose the pallid sturgeon, that’s an indication that we may start to see problems with
the catfish and the paddlefish and the mallards and the bass, and then people are really
going to start screaming.”


The pallid sturgeon needs deep water to lay its eggs. In 2006, the Army Corps of
Engineers released extra water from a South Dakota reservoir to mimic the flood
pulse that cues the fish’s reproduction. It was a highly controversial act 15 years
in the making:


“I’m uncomfortable with the Corps playing God.”


Paul Rhode is with the national shipping advocacy group Waterways Council,
Incorporated. He says the artificial rise meant dropped water levels later in the summer.
That hurt commercial barge operators. Rhode questions the Corps’ methods:


“I hope there are studies going on to try to capture whatever it is that they’re doing to justify
having a spring rise. In past years it was to stimulate least tern and piping plover
populations, and then it was discovered that there was no science behind that. That was
just guesswork.”


The interior least tern and the piping plover are two birds that are also protected
by the Endangered Species Act. Spokesman Paul Johnston says the Corps has
evidence that its methods are working:


“Near Ponca, Nebraska we dredged out an old channel that had been closed off to create
shallow water habitat for the sturgeon and created an island. It was still being groomed
when the terns and plovers began nesting on it. We had to shut the bulldozer operator
down.”


The Corps says it understands the needs of all the different interests along the
Missouri River. That’s why it’s agreed to pay for an independent scientific study
of its habitat construction program. That study is expected to begin this fall. The
Corps says it’s still committed to trying to find a balance between nature and
business on America’s longest river. But barge owners, sportsmen and
environmentalists will try to tip that balance in their favor.


For The Environment Report, I’m Kevin Lavery.

Related Links

New Fish Virus Becoming Long-Term Threat?

Biologists are concerned a new fish virus may become an ongoing threat in the Great Lakes. The virus caused a fish die-off in Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River last month. The GLRC’s David Sommerstein reports:

Transcript

Biologists are concerned a new fish virus may become an ongoing threat in the Great Lakes.
The virus caused a fish die-off in Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River last month.
The GLRC’s David Sommerstein reports:


Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia is common in saltwater fish in the Pacific Northwest,
but somehow the virus hopped into the freshwater fish of Lake St. Clair and Lake Ontario
last year. Then, last month, the virus killed hundreds of fish in the St. Lawrence River.
Scientists are trying to determine if the virus is a long-term threat to the Great Lakes
fishery:


“You know, that’s kind of the million dollar question.”


John Farrell directs the Thousand Islands Biological Station. He says many
fish species may become infected with the virus but not show symptoms:


“They may serve as a reservior for the virus. There’s a potential
that the virus could cycle over time, but may be with us for a long time to come.”


Conservation officials are most worried about muskies, trout and salmon – native
fish that anglers love to catch.


For the GLRC, I’m David Sommerstein.

Related Links

Chefs Serve Up Fish Conservation

  • Rick Bayless, a co-founder of Chefs Collaborative, is working to persuade other chefs to think about the environment when they make their decisions about food.

Some restauranteurs are looking at the effect they’re having on the world’s ecology, and as a result their chefs are changing their menus and their recipes so that there’s less pressure on some kinds of fish species. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Some restaurateurs are looking at the effect they’re having on the world’s ecology. And as a result their chefs are changing their menus and their recipes so that there’s less pressure on some kinds of fish species. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

It’s the middle of the week and there’s already more than an hour wait to get a table at this trendy Chicago restaurant. The Frontera Grill is the domain of executive chef and owner Rick Bayless. Bayless is known for several things: a television show on public TV, redefining Mexican cuisine, and co-founding a group that’s concerned about the impact chefs’ decisions have on the environment. The group Chefs Collaborative is especially concerned about what it calls “ecologically responsible seafood procurement.” It’s calling on chefs to learn about which fish species are over-fished, to ask questions of fish providers about the size and quantity of the catch, and to think about what they can do about taking pressure off of depleted fish supplies. The problem is that many of the world’s more popular fish species have been in such high demand; they’re being fished nearly out of existence.

Chef Bayless says restaurants and their chefs play a major role in fish consumption. By making a particular type of fish popular to eat, chefs also help decide what people eat at home or demand from other restaurants. So a chef can make a difference. Bayless says instead of using a popular fish that’s seen its numbers decline due to over-fishing, the chef can substitute another kind of fish, or if necessary take it off the menu.

“I would say that we have taken off – we used to do Chilean sea bass; we no longer do it. We used to do a lot of blue fin tuna; we don’t do hardly any of that anymore. We rarely serve snapper because that’s become a pretty heavily fished species. There’s a lot of things we don’t do that we used to because we realize that diversity is going to be the answer to not over-fishing.”

But the effort to get chefs to think about the ecological consequences of their decisions isn’t embraced by everyone. Many chefs take pride in serving only the very best regardless of the financial or environmental cost. So, some chefs are not willing to take a popular fish off the menu. Bayless says they’ll keep using an over-fished species even though they know the fish’s population is being depleted.

“There’s some great chefs in this country that have more or less made their reputations on dishes that involve Chilean sea bass. And they’re going to be the last ones to change because they think of these dishes as their signatures, so a lot of those guys will shy away from these kinds of discussions.”

And if the chefs demand a fish at any price, there will always be some commercial fishers who will provide it if they can.

Peter Jarvis operates Triar Seafood in Hollywood, Florida. He supplies fish to chefs across the nation. Jarvis says some of his chefs are concerned about over-fishing. They know that certain ocean fish have dropped in numbers and have dropped in size in the past. But sometimes their information is out-dated. Back in the 1980s the Reagan administration pushed the international boundary waters out to 200 miles off the coast.
Then federal agencies closed or restricted fishing for certain species. Some of those populations have rebounded. So, Jarvis says it’s important that chefs talk to their providers rather than make decisions on old information. But Jarvis says it’s a different story farther out in international waters, and along the coasts of other nations. There, he says, little is done to check over-harvesting.

“We don’t seem to have a very good handle on the over-fishing situation outside of our own borders. You know, you go two-hundred miles off into international waters and it’s all renegades out there with very large vessels that are just pillaging the waters.”

And some chefs resort to buying fish from those sources or from countries with weak conservation laws. Even more bothersome to Jarvis are huge trawlers taking tons of fish for fish sticks and fast food fish sandwiches. But Jarvis says the more sophisticated consumer, the kind who frequents upscale restaurants, seems to be willing to put up with some changes on the menu. Chefs tell him that many of their patrons are willing to be flexible.

At the Frontera Grill, the patrons we talked to seemed to agree. We asked Lyn Schroth how she would feel if her favorite restaurant dropped a dish from the menu because that fish was being over-harvested.

“I’d be very happy with them because I wouldn’t want to eat anything that – you know, I’m a big animal lover, okay? And, most the time I don’t know what’s endangered and what’s not. And, the restaurant takes it off the menu, I’m proud of them.”

While restaurant patrons might be willing to make changes for the sake of the environment, getting the message to chefs is harder. Chef Rick Bayless says the culinary schools aren’t talking about the source of foods or the pressure on stocks in the ocean or on the ground with their student chefs.

“I think that’s the biggest disservice this country is making to the next generation of chefs. They’re teaching young chefs mostly to say ‘I’m demanding the best quality,’ but they should be demanding the products that are going to ensure that we have a future. And, they’re not doing that. They’re not teaching them that kind of stuff, about how to be responsible.”

But, Bayless says that some of the young chefs are learning that responsibility on their own through professional organizations such as the Chefs Collaborative and talking with fellow-chefs who are concerned about the environment. And Bayless adds they’re also learning from consumers who put pressure on the restaurants to think about the ecological impact of what they put on the menu.

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

Related Links

CHEFS SERVE UP FISH CONSERVATION (Short Version)

  • Rick Bayless, a co-founder of Chefs Collaborative, is working to persuade other chefs to think about the environment when they make their decisions about food.

Some chefs are working on campaigns to raise awareness about ocean fish conservation. Their efforts could mean some changes on your favorite restaurant’s menu. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Some chefs are working on campaigns to raise awareness about ocean fish conservation. Their efforts could mean some changes on your favorite restaurant’s menu. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Some celebrity chefs from across the nation are working together to stress the importance of conserving fish species. Several fish have been over-harvested and the chefs are calling on their colleagues and consumers to be more ecologically responsible. Rick Bayless is a chef in Chicago and has a television show on public TV. He says his restaurants and chefs have tried to keep informed about the fish they use.

“And then as we hear that certain things are stressed populations or if, for instance, tuna is not coming in as big as it used to be or marlin from Florida is getting smaller and smaller. And we can see that. And then we’ll all sort of get together and go ‘I think we should really not do this anymore because this doesn’t look very good.”

Bayless and other chefs involved in conservation programs are urging people to use fish in a way that doesn’t continue to cause pressure on the fish populations that are disappearing due to over-harvesting.

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

Related Links