FIGHT FOR AMERICA’S LONGEST RIVER (Part 2)

  • Barge companies question the science of the Army Corps of Engineers' studies that indicate habitat restoration and changes in river management help threatened species and other wildlife. (Photo by Lester Graham)

The US economy relies heavily on the nation’s rivers to transport goods bound
for foreign markets. Each year river barges carry hundreds of millions of
tons of cargo to busy ports. Traffic is bustling on some rivers, but it’s dying on
others. Commercial shippers say their situation is made worse by attempts to
balance their interests against conservation. In the second of three reports,
Kevin Lavery explains why some barge companies say mismanagement is
squeezing them out of the marketplace:

Transcript

The US economy relies heavily on the nation’s rivers to transport goods bound
for foreign markets. Each year river barges carry hundreds of millions of
tons of cargo to busy ports. Traffic is bustling on some rivers, but it’s dying on
others. Commercial shippers say their situation is made worse by attempts to
balance their interests against conservation. In the second of three reports,
Kevin Lavery explains why some barge companies say mismanagement is
squeezing them out of the marketplace:


In 2004, America celebrated the bicentennial of Lewis and Clark’s Corps of
Discovery mission to the West. At the start of the 19th century, the Missouri River
was center stage in an age of discovery.


By the start of the 21st century, the river was in an age of discontent. Riverboat
companies, environmentalists, Indian tribes and state governments were
deadlocked in legal battles over water releases.


Paul Davis’ shipping terminal in Boonville, Missouri has been around for 36
years. In 2004, he watched two major shippers call it quits. One of them,
Blaskey Marine, was a family venture:


“And Blaskey had been in the towboat business on the Missouri River for as long as I can
recall, and business just got too tough for them, so they just gave it up. And that’s what
really was the beginning of the end in our involvement with barges, at least for the time
being.”


Industry watchers say the riverboats have been clanging their death knell for
a long time. In 1977, barges carried just over 3 million tons of cargo. Since then,
floods, drought and market forces have cut barge shipments by two-thirds. Chad
Smith is with the environmental group American Rivers in Lincoln, Nebraska:


“They don’t move a lot of tons, and agriculture basically dictates that grain moves the
market by truck and rail. Everybody agrees those numbers don’t lie.”


But everyone doesn’t agree. Paul Rhode is with the national shipping advocacy
group Waterways Council, Incorporated:


“People say barge traffic is dying on the Missouri. That’s not true. Barge traffic is being
killed by the way the Missouri river is managed right now.”


Rhode blames the industry’s woes on the Army Corps of Engineers, the federal
agency that regulates the Missouri River.


In May 2006, the Corps released more water than usual from a South Dakota
reservoir. The rise was meant to tell an endangered fish, the pallid sturgeon, to
spawn. Rhode says that artificial rise in the spring later lowered the river’s depth
in the summer. He says unpredictable flows kept shippers from carrying a lot of
freight… and making long-term plans:


“The levels could be managed much better. We don’t need a spring rise. We need water
down here in August and September. Barge traffic has been cut short by leaps and
bounds over the past few years, in part because of the spring rise issue.”


How short? Despite heavy rains earlier this year, the Corps plans to shorten the
navigation season by at least 45 days. That means shippers who normally finish
in December will be lucky to still be hauling by Halloween.


But there’s only so much water that can be released from upstream
reservoirs… and the Corps stands by its decision to raise the river. Spokesman
Paul Johnston says biologists are encouraged by the data they’re seeing on the
pallid sturgeon. And he says the man-made flood pulses are minor:


“They’re certainly not aggressive, at least in our perspective, and I know that there are
people who think that it’s too much too soon. But if we don’t do anything, then we
certainly will not have any data to back up any decisions.”


Historically, the Corps’ decisions tended to favor riverboats, especially in the
1930’s, when the Corps turned 735 miles of the Missouri into a shipping channel.
American Rivers’ Chad Smith says while that was viewed as the best course for
the river then, its time to set a new one:


“It’s now the year 2007 and I think our hopes and dreams have changed. And it’s probably
time for Congress to go back and see what’s happening in this basin with market forces in
agriculture and a lot of these big drivers that put pressure on the way we use and manage
the Missouri now, and see if there are things we need to do differently.”


Smith suggests some of those uses of the Missouri River might be changing
soon. With their balance sheets already razor-thin, barge operators worry those
changes might sink them.


For The Environment Report, I’m Kevin Lavery.


ANCHOR TAG: Tomorrow, Kevin reports on how the recreation and wildlife
preservation search for their place on the Missouri River.

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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.

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