big river magazine, july-august 2006 · july-august 2006 falcons return to the cliffsfalcons return...

Exploring the Mississippi from the Twin Cities to the Quad Cities

July-August 2006

www.big-river.com

Falcons Return to the CliffsFalcons Return to the Cliffs

www.big-river.com

Photographers Capture the RefugePhotographers Capture the Refuge

River Danger SignsRiver Danger Signs

DragonfliesDragonflies

BR JA6 cover 6/13/06 12:28 PM Page c1

STEAMBOAT CRUISES ON

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35th Anniversary of Julia Belle Swain!


July-August 2006 / BIG RIVER MAGAZINE 1

BRJA6 6/13/06 11:10 AM Page 1

2 BIG RIVER MAGAZINE / July-August 2006

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C O V E R I N G T H E U P P E R M I S S I S S I P P I S I N C E 1 9 9 3

F E A T U R E S16 Darners, Clubtails, Spiketails, Cruisers, Emeralds

and Skimmers: The Colorful World of DragonfliesBy Gary Rodoc

22 Know Your River:Nuns on the Right, Cans on the Left —Where the Buoys AreBy Pamela Eyden

25 Blufflands AllianceA coalition of six land trusts protects thousands of blufflandacres along the Upper Mississippi River Valley.

By Lauren Elizondo

28 Back to the BluffsPeregrines return to the Mississippi River bluffs.

By Fran Howard

32 Capturing the RefugeImages of the river from the Friends of the Upper MississippiRiver Refuges photo contest.

39 Letterboxing: Hobby, Pastime, Puzzle and AnotherWay to Explore the RiverBy Pamela Eyden

55 Bilge FiltersClean that bilge water before releasing it back into the river.

By Gary Kramer

July-August 2006

TM

D E P A R T M E N T S5 From the Riverbank

Punishers and Freeloaders

By Reggie McLeod

7 River NewsFreedom Park, ethanol and carp, carp, carp.

53 River CalendarCatfish Days, Prairie Dog Blues, Great River Rumble,walking tours.

57 Advertiser IndexWhere did I see that ad…?

64 River PeopleDonald Sweeney:Holding the Corps Accountable

By Reggie McLeod

Cover: A peregrine-banding team rappels down Castle Rock,downriver from Fountain City, Wis. (courtesy of the Raptor Re-source Project)

32

28Male peregrines are smaller thanfemales. This one is nesting nearCassville, Wis. (Raptor Resource Project)

Natalie Barnes

BRJA6 6/13/06 11:10 AM Page 3


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• Downtown Sidewalk Sales & Community Garage SalesAugust 5, 2006

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BRJA6 6/13/06 11:10 AM Page 4

Big River™

Big River Magazine (ISSN 1070-8340) is pub-lished six times a year by Open River Presswith assistance from Riverwise, Inc., 70 1/2 E.Fourth St., PO Box 204, Winona, MN 55987;(507) 454-5949; fax: (507) 454-2133;email: [email protected];website: www.big-river.com

Reggie McLeod ........editor/publisher

Molly McGuire ........managing editor

Pamela Eyden ..........news/photo editor

Marc Hequet ............contributing editor, Twin Cities

Maureen J. Cooney ..office/sales

Kathy Delano ..........sales/design

Robert Copeland ......bookkeeping/subscriptions

Patricia McGuire ....bills & renewals assistant

Subscriptions are $27 for one year, $49 for twoyears or $4.95 per single issue. Send subscrip-tions, single-copy orders and change-of-addressrequests to Big River, PO Box 204, Winona,MN 55987.

Second-class postage paid at Winona, MN.

POSTMASTER: send change-of-addressrequests to Big River, PO Box 204, Winona,MN 55987.

Big River Magazine, Volume 14, Number 4,copyright July 2006. Reproduction in whole orin part without written permission of the pub-lisher is prohibited.

From theRiverbank

For centuries fishermen filledtheir boats with cod from thenorthwest Atlantic. Bigger boats,

bigger nets and sonar led to overfish-ing, until the population collapsed inthe early 1990s. The collapse killed anindustry and a way of life, plungingmany communities on the east coastof Canada and New England intopoverty.

It didn’t happen all of a sudden,and a lot of people saw it comingfrom a long way off. Had govern-ments limited fishing to a sustainablelevel, those boats would be busy to-day, but individual greed overcamethe collective greed, and a great re-source was destroyed. At public meet-ings up and down the coast in the1980s and 90s, fishermen fought thebiologists tooth and nail. They won,then they lost.

As we bumble about trying to dealwith problems like global warmingand declining water quality, the stick-ing points often involve trying to bal-ance the interests of individuals, orga-nizations and the whole population.Research recently published in Sciencemagazine (April 7, 2006) offered in-triguing insight into patterns of be-havior that affect how we take care ofour collective interests.

A paper, titled “The CompetitiveAdvantage of Sanctioning Institu-tions,” described how a research pro-ject gave test subjects the choice ofjoining one of two investmentsgroups that operated under identicalrules, with one exception: one groupallowed members to sanction othermembers, the other did not.

Each participant in the study wasgiven 20 money units at the begin-ning of each round. Each then decid-ed how many money units to investin a common investment pool for thegroup. Then a fixed rate of return wasadded to the pool and the total wasdivided evenly among the membersin that group. Members were free toswitch groups at the end of eachround.

The sanctioning group had one ad-ditional rule: At the end of eachround they could use some of theirmoney units to sanction other mem-bers of their group. Every dollar thesanctioning member spent cost thesanctioned member three dollars.

(Let’s call the sanctioning group“the Punishers” and the nonsanction-ing group “the Free Spirits.”)

Initially, nearly two-thirds of thepeople joined the Free Spirits group,and quickly two types of human be-havior were emerged. One type of hu-man (We’ll call them “Chumps.”) putmost or all their money units into thegroup investment. The other type ofhuman (We’ll call them “Freeload-ers.”) kept most or all of their moneyand collected a share of the group in-vestment.

People quickly changed their be-havior to optimize their profit. By thethird round half the people belongedto the Punishers group. By the 17thround, 90 percent belonged to thePunishers. The Chumps switchedfirst, after seeing their money unitsflowing into the the Freeloaders’ ac-counts. After a few rounds mostly

Reggie McLeodEditor/Publisher

Contacts (800) 303-8201. For information about stories, columns and River News, contact Reggie McLeod, Pamela Eyden or Molly McGuire([email protected]). For calendar events, contact Kathy Delano or Molly McGuire ([email protected]). For information about placingan ad in Big River or for information about selling Big River magazines contact Kathy Delano or Maureen J. Cooney ([email protected]). Wemust receive calendar events by July 22 to get them into the September-October 2006 magazine. We must receive ads by July 10.

COMING SOON

Restaurant Reviews

St. Paul’s Big New Park

Folk Art

Minnesota Marine Art Museum

PUNISHERS AND FREELOADERS


(Riverbank continues on page 54)

BRJA6 6/13/06 11:10 AM Page 5


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Bass-o-maticVicksburg, Tenn. — To test howan increase in the number of tow-boats on the Upper Mississippi maycause an increase in the number offish killed by towboat propellers, theEngineering Research and Develop-ment Center (ERDC), an affiliate ofthe Army Corps of Engineers-Rock Is-land District, will send the 3,600-hpAmerican Beauty towboat out to plyPools 26 and 14 this summer and fall.The boat will drag a fishnet behind itto catch fish that get caught in theprop wash. Researchers from theERDC will follow behind in smallboats to collect the nets and dumptheir contents into their boats, wherethey will record the number and typeof fish caught, whether they havewounds, the age and nature of thewounds, and the number of dead fish.(Waterways Journal, 5-29-06)

River Rat a HitMissoula, Mont. — “Mississippi:Tales of the Last River Rat,” the filmabout Kenny Salwey’s view of theMississippi backwaters, drew rave re-views from a panel of viewers at theInternational Wildlife Film Festival inMay. The festival featured films aboutAfrican lions, rattlesnakes, bats, pen-guins, fur seals and termites.

Members of the all-ages panel,who were not connected to thewildlife film industry, participated ina focus group called, “What doesJan/John Doe Think of Today’sWildlife Films?” They reportedly gavea boisterous “thumbs-down” to most,disliking them for their overbearingnarrators, frenetic pace and exploita-tion of animals for their entertainmentvalue. The Salwey film appealed toall.

“I liked the images of the wildlifeand how he lived,” said a fifth-grader.“I wanted to see more.”

Gators Next?Memphis — It came as nosurprise to Alan Petersonwhen someone emailed him aphoto of an alligator in a Mis-sissippi River backwater nearMemphis.

Nor was it a surprise when apark ranger called him a week later,saying he was looking at two gators.

The Tennessee Wildlife ResourcesAgency has received reports of alliga-tors in McKellar Lake, a Mississippibackwater; and at T.O. Fuller StatePark, north of Memphis.

“We’ve been expecting it for a longtime,” said Peterson, a wildlife biolo-gist with the agency. Gators havebeen proliferating in Louisiana,where gator farmers release 40,000or more per year into the wild. Andalligators frequent northern Mississip-pi, which is only 20 miles south ofMemphis.

Dr. Omar Davis emailed the gatorshot to Peterson. Dr. Davis, a Mem-phis physician, took the photo whilefishing on McKellar Lake near Mem-phis.

An alligator was something new toDr. Davis, a longtime resident. “Thatwas the first one I’ve ever seen,” hesaid. “I didn’t think they came this farnorth.”

American alligators once grew to18 feet but nowadays rarely reach 12feet, according to the World Book Ency-clopedia. Males can weigh 450 pounds.Females rarely grow to more than

nine feet or more than 160 pounds.Hunted for their hides, gators be-

came scarce and were declared en-dangered in 1967. Their numbersquickly rebounded and some huntingnow is allowed.

Florida was rattled in May whengators killed three women in separateattacks. Gators eat fish, snakes, frogs,turtles, small mammals and birds.Large males may attack dogs, pigs,cattle — or humans.

Back-to-back mild winters mayhave drawn alligators up the Missis-sippi. “They’re expanding back into

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Hastings

Elizabeth

MuscatineBuffalo

River News

Visit www.big-river.com for links toinformation about stories markedwith the mouse�.

BRJA6 6/13/06 11:10 AM Page 7


their old range,” surmises biologistPeterson. “I think it’s just a matter ofof time before we’ve got ‘em in a fairnumber of streams.”

Alligators used to range almost toSt. Louis, 240 miles upriver fromMemphis. “Whether or not they’ll gothat far, who knows?” said Peterson.“Especially since the habitat haschanged dramatically over the years.”

Iowa WhoopersBaraboo, Wis. — Eleven first-yearwhooping cranes were counted inIowa this spring, an unusual sightingfor crane watchers, although it wasbusiness-as-usual for the Internation-al Crane Foundation (ICF), in Bara-boo.

“First-year birds tend to rangewidely,” said Joan Garland, ICF out-reach coordinator. “Groups breakapart and wander around, but if theystay in Iowa through the end of June,there’s a good chance they’ll stay allsummer and leave directly for Floridain the fall.”

Six of the rare, endangered birds

were counted inIowa river countiesin mid May. Fivemore arrived inlate May. All haveradio transmitterson their legs, soICF staff can moni-tor their move-ments.

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Carp OpportunitiesLegislators, biologists and fishermenare struggling to find solutions to theproblems posed by Asian carp (grass,bighead, silver and black), whichhave been wreaking havoc on the en-vironment and on the commercialfishing industry. The large, bony fishwere imported from China’s YangtzeRiver in the 1960s and 1970s to cleanalgae and detritus from southern cat-fish farms. They escaped fromArkansas and Mississippi fish farmsduring floods in the 1980s and 1990sand have been spreading up the Mis-sissippi River and its tributaries eversince.

Asian carp are efficient filter feed-ers — they consume as much as 40pounds of plankton per day and cangrow as big as 100 pounds. The silverAsian carp leaps out of the waterwhen startled by a boat motor.

• Some have estimated the IllinoisRiver may contain 65 million poundsof Asian carp. Commercial fishermencurrently harvest 7,000 to 12,000pounds of the fish per day, but only afew have invested in nets heavyenough for the job.

State Senator Mike Jacobs of Mo-line, Ill., proposed a $750,000 statesubsidy to Schafer’s Fisheries, ofThomson, Ill., to buy equipment toturn Asian carp into processed,pressed, breaded fish patties. In earlyJune the proposal was awaiting thegovernor’s signature.

Schafer currently buys two millionpounds of the fish from commercialfishermen, He wants to increase thisto 10 million, which could make adent in the river population. He cur-rently sells the fish to Asian-Ameri-can communities in New York, Toron-to and Los Angeles, where it is a pop-ular delicacy. Turning the fish intohigh-protein patties would probablycreate new markets. One possibility isto sell the patties to the Illinois De-partment of Corrections to feed tostate prison inmates.

• Sections of the Illinois Riverhave been overwhelmed by the inva-sive fish, which are outcompeting na-tive fish for habitat and food. Theybecome agitated when they hear boat

motors and rush, en masse, to attackthe boat, like a herd galloping under-water. The fish are so plentiful, onetown along the Illinois has reportedlybegun hosting fishing tournaments inwhich fishermen don’t use rods andreels — they just drive around intheir boats and collect the fish thatjump in.

• Bow hunters on the Illinois Riverhave turned the Asian silver carpproblem into an opportunity. Bow-fishing is usually practiced on quietwater, but log-sized silver carp pre-sent a moving target as they hurlthemselves several feet out of the wa-ter. Fishermen try to shoot them inmid-air.

“If I don’t put 200 fish a night inthe boat, I’m pretty disgusted withmyself,” said one bowfisherman.“That’s because I usually get about100 of them in the boat without evenpicking my bow up.” (Belleville NewsDemocrat, 5-31-06)

• In Washington, D.C., the HouseJudiciary Committee unanimouslyapproved a measure in late Marchthat would make it illegal to importor transfer Asian carp across statelines, but southern state representa-tives were expected to put up a fiercefight over the bill when it hit theHouse floor. They claim such a billwould cripple the fish farm industry.

• The United States is not the onlycountry whose rivers are threatenedby the invasive carp. Australia faces asimilar threat. Researchers at theCommonwealth Scientific and Indus-trial Research Organization in Ho-bart, Australia, have been working ongenetically modifying Asian carp toproduce predominantly male fish. Bybiasing sex ratios toward males using“daughterless carp technology,” num-bers of Asian carp could be drastical-ly reduced within 20 to 30 years oftheir release. While the technique isspecies-specific and would not affectnative fish, this is a major concern.Testing continues. (River Crossings,Vol. 15, No. 2, published by Missis-sippi Interstate Cooperative ResourceAssociation)

• Meanwhile, a mass die-off ofAsian carp was reported on the mid-dle reaches of the Illinois River near

BRJA6 6/13/06 11:10 AM Page 9


Havana, Il., in early June. Thousandsof carp were found floating belly up.The cause was not known, although avirus that targets carp, called thespring viremia of carp, was suspect-ed.

• The fish are continuing theirnorthward spread this summer. A 45-to 50-pound Asian grass carp wascaught in April by a commercial fish-erman in the St. Croix River, a tribu-tary of the Mississippi between Wis-consin and Minnesota. Although afew other grass carp have been foundin Pool 4 (Lake Pepin) over the lasttwo decades, there is no evidence thatthey are reproducing this far north,according to the Minnesota Depart-ment of Natural Resources.

Venetian Parade Rock Island, Ill. — The Quad Cities’annual Venetian Night Lighted BoatParade used to draw parade organiz-ers and enthusiasts from around thecountry. The lights decorating theboats were so elaborate they out-shown all the other parades in the

country. The parade has not beenheld for the last two years, but it mayreturn this Labor Day weekend, justbelow Lock and Dam 15. The last one,in 1993, was the Quad Cities’ largestparade ever, with about 40 boats.Normally, the parade attracted 20 to25 boats.

While boats are commonly deco-rated by outlining them with lights orblinking lights, many of the QuadCity boats had sequenced lightingthat depicted elaborate themes. Thehigh point was a 50-foot houseboatdecorated with a circus theme anddubbed “Big Top Circus.” Overall, thedisplay was 54-feet long and stoodover 30-feet high. Its collection of ani-mated scenes required 12,000 Christ-mas lights. A trapeze artist swung 34feet above the water from the bow ofthe boat to the stern. Below, a sealbalanced a spinning ball on its noseand a clown pedaled a unicycle whilehe juggled balls. The stern of the boatfeatured an interactive scene in whicha clown squirted water out of aflower boutonniere at an elephant,

who then lowered his trunk into abarrel, filled up with water, raised histrunk and squirted the clown, knock-ing the clown’s hat off, but he quicklycaught it before it fell.

The circus boat didn’t even winfirst place that year. It shared thataward with another boat that fea-tured the sinking of the Titanic, whiletwo competing boats depicted bowl-ers in a bowling alley, and dolphinsjumping through a hoop from thefront of a boat to the rear.

Many of these dazzling displayswere designed by Lyle Haakenson ofDavenport, Iowa, who has since goneon to design and build elaborate win-ter lighting displays for the Daven-port park district. He said it wouldtake just the right boat and a lot ofhelp before he would commit to cre-ating another entry.

Spokesman for the parade, JackTumbleson, said that as of June 1,they still needed to raise the $2,800event insurance fee, but he was confi-dent that the parade would go on.

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School on the CatQuad Cities — The Channel Cat Wa-ter Taxis have combined fun withtransportation since 1995. They shut-tle more than 37,000 passengers asummer between five docks on bothsides of the river. A $5 ticket ($2 forchildren aged 2 to 10) gets you all-day, unlimited boarding. Riders canget off in one location and resumetheir journey anytime during the dayor evening.

This summer, River Action, Inc., alocal nonprofit group that promotespublic awareness and connections tothe river, will offer a series of classesaboard the taxis from June throughthe end of August.

On July 6 and 11, and August 22and 24, participants will get a shortcourse in towboat dangers, lock-and-dam safety, and boating safety.

On July 18 and 20, and August 29and 31, students will perform hands-on water testing, and learn about wa-tershed practices and their impact onwater quality from a state water qual-ity supervisor.

On July 25 and 27, a retired Au-gustana College professor will tellstories about the Moline lock, theRock Island Bridge, the Civil War, lo-cal city history and the battle ofCampbell’s Island.

On August 1 and 3, a U.S. Fish andWildlife Service biologist will talkabout habitat diversity and produc-tivity in a large ecosystem.

Photographers are invited aboardon August 8 and 10 to practice andlearn local wildlife photography froma local freelance photographer.

On August 15 and 17, a marine op-erations chief will talk about thetransportation industry while theclass watches operations at a bargeunloading facility.

Classes cost $10 each and will beheld on Tuesday and Thursday morn-ings, from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. For moreinformation, see the River Action website or call (563) 322-2969. ��

Picking a New BridgeQuad Cities — The amount of trafficon the I-74 bridge between Moline,Illinois, and Bettendorf, Iowa, exceed-ed design capacity a long time ago.

More than 75,000 vehicles a day passover the spans. Accidents and break-downs cause major bottlenecks be-cause the bridge has no shoulders orplaces to pull off. Planning for its re-placement has been going on forsome time and in May took anotherlarge step forward.

Citizens were given a look at fouralternate bridge designs and askedfor their input by officials at the Iowaand Illinois departments of trans-portation, who are jointly developingthe project. That input will help leadto a final design selection within thenext six months, according to theschedule.

An environmental impact studybased on the footprint of the chosenmodel should be done by June, 2007,and then right-of-way acquisition canbegin. All of that should be complet-ed between 2007 and 2010, then, if thelocal governments have met all thefederal criteria, a record of decisionwill be put in place, which will leadto a request for more than $650 mil-lion for the bridge and improvementsbluff to bluff in the 2010 federal trans-portation budget.

The four designs were termed “abasket handle true arch twin bridges,a modified basket handle tied archtwin bridges, a basket handle tiedarch twin bridges with vertical piersand hangers, and a cable stayed sin-gle bridge with semi-fan stayarrangement.” The differences are dif-ficult to describe but can be seen on-line. To date, the cable stayed singlebridge was the most popular. It issimilar to the bridge in Burlington,Iowa.

The bridge is an important trans-portation corridor in the Quad-Citiesand one of the most traveled sectionsof road in that area. The existingbridge is scheduled to be removed af-ter the new one is completed, al-though one citizen has suggestedturning one span into a park with “apath, benches, plants, grasses, obser-vation deck, restaurant and ice creamstand,” while another suggestedkeeping one span to use as a bikepath and pedestrian crossing, whichmight be cheaper than adding thoseto the new structure. ��

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New Freedom ParkPrescott, Wis. — A new $2 millionFreedom Park and Great River RoadVisitor and Learning Center openedthis summer on a small bluff abovethe confluence of the St. Croix Riverand Mississippi rivers. The seven-acre park includes a bluff where aninjured but rehabilitated bald eaglenamed “Freedom” was released intothe wild in 1982. The site previouslyheld a town park consisting of openspace and a playground. The newpark features a picnic pavilion, am-phitheater and interactive displaysabout the Great River Road, and thehistory and economy of the area.

New Ethanol PlantsBuffalo, Iowa — The rivertown ofBuffalo, population 1,321, will soonhost a new $100 million ethanol plantthat will initially employ 35 to 45people to produce 50 million gallonsof ethanol per year. The plant is pro-jected to grow to twice that capacity.All of the ethanol will be shipped bybarge, using a barge loading facility

that is part of the plant. Quad-City-based River/Gulf Energy and AlterBarge Line in Bettendorf have joinedforces on the project, which will occu-py the former site of a fertilizer plantthat closed several years ago.

Upriver, in Fulton, Ill., a newlyformed group of businesspeople,called Fulton Ethanol L.L.C., an-nounced plans to build an ethanolplant there that will use a combina-tion of Illinois coal and biomass ma-terial. The group hopes to start con-struction this fall and finish within ayear to 14 months.

A bit farther upriver, CarrollCounty Ethanol has announced it willbuild a 100-million-gallon-per yearethanol plant near the MississippiRiver between Thomson and Savan-na, Ill., both hard hit in recent yearsby the closing of the Savanna ArmyDepot.

More PowerCassville, Wis. — Wisconsin Powerand Light, an Alliant Energy Compa-ny headquartered in Madison, Wis.,

has selected Cassville, population1,031, as the site of a power plant ex-pansion. The company will increasethe capacity of its Nelson DeweyGenerating Station by 150 percent bybuilding a new, 300 megawatt unitjust south of the existing plant. It alsoplans to add equipment that wouldreduce emissions from the expandedplant to below 2004 levels.

In choosing Cassville over the oth-er contender, Portage, Wis., Alliantcited the proximity of rail lines, bargefacilities and transmission lines.

Increased rail traffic may affecttown residents, but much depends onthe direction from which the coaltrains enter and leave town.

The company will hold open hous-es this summer to share informationabout the expansion.

Fish on the NetDes Moines, Iowa — The Iowa De-partment of Natural Resources hasdevised a new way to inform fisher-men — it will email them the IowaFishing Report, with hot tips and cur-

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BRJA6 6/13/06 11:10 AM Page 12


rent information gathered from baitshops and creel surveys, and orga-nized by region, each Tuesdaythrough July.

To join, send a blank email mes-sage to [email protected].

Pool 5 DrawdownBuffalo City, Wis. — The ArmyCorps of Engineers was scheduled tobegin a drawdown on Pool 5 on June12 this summer, reducing water levelsnear Lock and Dam 5 by a maximumof 1.5 feet.

Corps officials said the drawdownwould have little effect on commer-cial shipping, because the MainChannel was dredged in the spring,but recreational boaters will be affect-ed. Boat channels at Minneiska PublicLanding, Weaver Bottoms PublicLanding, Goose Lake Landing, ClearLake Landing and Halfmoon Landingwill be unusable or restricted tosmaller boats. In Wisconsin, only theUpper Spring Lake Landing will berestricted.

The drawdown was approved byall agencies in the River ResourcesForum.

If water levels stay low, the draw-down will continue through Septem-ber 12.

Oxygen MonitoringLa Crosse, Wis. — Equipment tomonitor water quality has been in-stalled in several shallow backwaterareas of Pool 8 this summer.

Researchers from the U.S. Geologi-cal Survey Upper Midwest Environ-mental Sciences Center and the Wis-consin Department of Natural Re-sources have teamed up on the pro-ject. They hope to learn more aboutthe effect of water clarity, river stage,weather conditions and plant nutri-ents on dissolved oxygen concentra-tions. Dissolved oxygen is a criticalfactor in the health of backwaters.The monitoring stations are markedwith reflective tape and flashinglights.

Barge BacklogThere’s a boom in the barge-buildingindustry, and the nation’s two prima-ry shipyards are working overtime to

keep up with demand.A lot of barges have been sold and

put into service in South America.Others have simply gotten old andbeen scrapped. About 328 new bargeswere built in 2005, but 714 were re-tired.

Christopher Black, vice presidentof Jeffboat, one of the primary bargebuilders, said that he estimates 25percent of all dry hopper barges needto be replaced. That’s 4,500 new dryhopper barges. Each costs about$450,000 to $500,000, with tankerscosting more and taking four or fivetimes longer to build. (WaterwaysJournal, 5-15-06)

Important Bird AreaSt. Paul — Audubon has designatedthe top half of the Upper MississippiRiver Wildlife and Fish Refuge, fromthe Chippewa River to the Iowa bor-der, as an Important Bird Area, one ofabout 86 such areas from the Missis-sippi headwaters to the Gulf.

“This means we’ll work to developa conservation strategy on both sidesof the river,” said Dan McGuiness,Mississippi River Program director.“We will work with other partners toset up community-based site supportgroups to advocate for the habitatneeds of all birds, not just waterfowlor migratory birds.”

Audubon has already contactedmany local groups and universities toparticipate as partners in the pro-gram.

McGuiness hopes the program willeventually lead to preservation of im-portant habitats, such as the bluffswhere peregrine falcons nest, and toan increase in the number and varietyof birds using the Mississippi River.The Important Bird Area programpromotes bird science, increases edu-cational opportunities and works toinform public policy.

Formal announcement of the des-ignation is expected in August.McGuiness said he expects the rest ofthe refuge will be added to the IBAwithin the year.

River Bluffs ViolationMcGregor, Iowa — Concerned citi-zens in McGregor are keeping a close

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BRJA6 6/13/06 11:10 AM Page 13


eye on developments at the contro-versial River Bluffs Resort under con-struction in the hills outside of town.The golf-and-condo development isgoing up near the headwaters of SnyMagill Creek, a trout stream and trib-utary to the Mississippi.

Watchful neighbors photographedmud and silt washing into the streamfrom an unnamed tributary near theconstruction site after several rainfallsin March and April, and sent the pho-tographs with complaints to the IowaDepartment of Natural Resources(DNR). After its investigation at theend of May, the DNR found the de-veloper and contractor had failed tocomply with the Stormwater Permit;had not implemented adequate pre-vention measures to limit sedimentrunoff; and that trout and trout fish-ing were being adversely affected bythe activity.

Developers had to stop work onthe project while a new Pollution Pre-vention Plan was developed and re-viewed, which is scheduled for earlyJune. Mike Wade, Iowa DNR Envi-

ronmental Specialist, said that clean-ing up the trout stream might be partof a penalty.

“It all depends on the magnitudeof the violation and the history of theproject,” he said. “This one met ourcriteria for litigation, so it’s in thehands of the legal department now.”

Metro River Plans Twin Cities — Both Minneapolis andSt. Paul are updating plans for pro-tecting the Mississippi riverfront.

Proposed plans are drawing criti-cism both from river advocates whowant more protection and riversideresidents and property owners whofear restrictions may make improve-ments difficult and costly.

Minnesota designated 72 miles ofthe river as a protected area in 1976.About one-third of that riverfront isin Minneapolis and St. Paul.

The Minneapolis update to the so-called “Mississippi River CriticalArea” plan gives priority to parks,trails and residential use along theriver above St. Anthony Falls, an area

that now is primarily industrial.An advocacy group, Friends of the

Mississippi River, approves of con-verting away from industrial, butcalls the Minneapolis plan’s stan-dards on building heights and set-

backs “vague and inadequate.”The group also criticizes the “lack

of a strong tree and vegetation pres-ervation plan for neighborhoods thatline the gorge [the stretch betweenthe two cities].”

St. Paul’s plan allows industrialdevelopments to remain, but envi-sions a riverbank that will becomemainly residential.

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Homeowners fear that more

restrictive zoning along the

river will discourage

improvements, causing the

housing stock in St. Paul’s

oldest neighborhoods to

deteriorate.

BRJA6 6/13/06 11:10 AM Page 14


Homeowners, however, fear thatmore restrictive zoning along the riverwill discourage improvements, causingthe housing stock in St. Paul’s oldestneighborhoods to deteriorate.

“The biggest worry is that the mod-est housing that we have will continueto deteriorate because of overly restric-tive regulations,” said Diane Gerth, anattorney and neighborhood activist.

For example, if a duplex owner inthe critical area wants to widen asidewalk for an older tenant, it “mayrequire a vegetation survey by a certi-fied landscape engineer for all theplants on the lot,” Gerth worries.

She fears limits on improvementswill cause deterioration or spur “mid-night remodeling jobs” — without apermit.

The city’s oldest neighborhood isdense with old houses on small lots.“We worry that the changes willmake preservation of our housingstock more difficult,” said Gerth,“and that historic properties won't bepreserved.”

Backwater Postage StampWinona, Minn. — A Mississippi Riv-er lotus in full bloom is featured on anew first-class postage stamp, in a se-ries called “Wonders of America.”The postage stamp art is based on aphotograph taken in the backwatersby Winona local photographer KayShaw. Her image, along with all theothers on the 40-stamp pane, was giv-en the shape and color of a 1930s pic-ture postcard.

Theater on the RiverMinneapolis — The grand openingof the new Guthrie Theater wasscheduled for late June at its $125-million-dollar new riverfront home,with fireworks, bands, family activi-ties and performances.

The prominent regional theater,founded in 1963, moved from its orig-inal location south of downtown to anew structure near the uppermostlocks and dams at St. Anthony Falls

(River News continues on page 41)

This American lotus photograph by local photographer Kay Shawappears in artwork on a new 40-cent postage stamp. (Kay Shaw)

BRJA6 6/13/06 11:11 AM Page 15


Darners, Clubtails, Spiketails, Cruisers,Emeralds and SkimmersThe Colorful World of DragonfliesText and photographs by Gary Rodoc

People travel great distances tothe Upper Mississippi to seebald eagles, the fall migration

of tundra swans and the spring mi-gration of songbirds, but most missanother world of nature that is just asfascinating: the “little things.”Through macro photography, I have achance to see into this world and takephotographs to share with others.

Dragonflies are some of my fa-vorite little things. More than 100species of dragonflies dart and hoveralong the Upper Mississippi River,and many of them are as colorful andbeautiful as butterflies.

Dragonflies belong to the orderOdonata (toothed ones). They havebeen called “devil’s darning needles,”a name that implies that they bite orpoke humans. This is not true. Awoman at an art show recently toldme she loved dragonflies but wasafraid of them. She said she and herhusband got out of their boat and leftthe riverbank after they’d been fish-ing, when swarms of dragonflies be-gan buzzing around their heads. Theythought they were going to get bitten.

I explained to her that the dragon-flies were being helpful, grabbingmosquitoes that really were out tobite them.

There are six families of dragon-flies: darners, clubtails, spiketails,cruisers, emeralds and skimmers.Each family has specific habitatneeds, such as slow streams, lakes,fast flowing rivers and marshes. Theyare very territorial — patrolling,guarding and defending their perchsites.

Dragonflies spend most of theirlife (up to three years) as eggs, thenas larva underwater, making them avalued asset for monitoring waterquality. After the eggs hatch, the larvamolts once and starts hunting forfood. As the larva grows, it will moltmany more times over the next cou-

ple of years. A day or two beforeemerging from the water, the larvagoes into a rest period while finalchanges are underway. Some will restwith part of their head above water tohelp them get used to breathing air.They usually emerge early in themorning and cling to a plant stem,

Widow Skimmer (Libellula luctuosa)

The male widow skimmer occupies a large territory, about 250 squareyards. I watched this dominant male chase another skimmer away at leasta dozen times before he lit on a blade of grass right in front of me, posingfor his close-up.

BRJA6 6/13/06 11:11 AM Page 16


Blue Dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis)

In the insect world, dragonflies are considered fearsome predators. Ashunters, they consume massive numbers of nuisance insects, like gnats,flies and mosquitoes. This male blue dasher is only 1.3 inches long, but iteats about 300 insects per day, which is about 10 to 15 percent of itsbody weight. Both females and males defend their territories along theshores of weedy ponds. Males aggressively threaten each other withraised blue abdomen as they battle for position, like this little guy didwith me, challenging me to stay off his turf.

tree trunk or rock face. The skin atthe back of the head cracks open,then the thorax emerges first from thelarval shell, and the fly continuesdrawing itself out of the shell until itis free. It takes about an hour for itswings to dry and harden before it canfly.

The dragonfly is now a fullygrown adult. It will not molt again. Itis very vulnerable during emergence,and as many as 90 percent get pickedoff by fish, birds and other bugs dur-ing this time.

Dragonflies have existed for 300million years. Some fossil dragonflieshad wing spans of 2.5 feet. Todaythey are struggling to adapt to a con-stantly changing environment. A fewdragonflies are on the threatened andendangered species lists, and othersare of “special concern.” Their sur-vival is vital to a healthy river ecosys-tem. I really believe that through thepower of photography, I can bringawareness to these special insects,one of the “little things” most of usmiss in our day-to-day lives.

For more information, read KurtMead’s Dragonflies of the North Woodsand Karl Legler’s Dragonflies of Wis-consin. F

Gary and Deb Rodoc live in Nelson,Wis., where they operate Riverdoc Pho-tography

Larval ShellThe chances of finding an empty dragonfly lar-val shell are pretty small, since rain or wind usu-ally knocks these delicate casings off their perch.I was lucky enough to find this one still attachedto a reed in a backwater marsh, while I wassearching for wetland native flowers.

BRJA6 6/13/06 11:11 AM Page 17


Eastern Pondhawk (Erythemis simplicollis)

With large leg spines that help it hold its prey, the eastern pond-hawk will eat anything its size or smaller, even other pondhawks.They also follow large animals and humans to feed on insectsswarming around them.

The female eastern pondhawk was the first dragonfly I ever pho-tographed. Anyway, that’s what I thought. I started learning aboutthese insects because they were incessantly following me aroundwhile I photographed native wildflowers, birds and butterflies. Iknew that female hawks were green and the males were blue. Icouldn’t figure out why all I saw were green females early in theseason. Where were all the blue males? As I learned more aboutdragonflies, I discovered that both male and female pondhawksstart their adult life green, but as the males mature, they turn apowdery blue.

BRJA6 6/13/06 11:12 AM Page 18


Eastern Amberwing (Perithemus tenera)

This male eastern amberwing is only 0.9 inch and the second smallestdragonfly in North America. Being so small, one of its defenses is to mimica wasp by moving its abdomen up and down and waving its wings. I nowwonder how many times in the past I walked by amberwings, thinkingthey were wasps.

BRJA6 6/13/06 11:12 AM Page 19


BRJA6 6/13/06 11:12 AM Page 20


Variegated Meadowhawk (Sympetrum corruptum)

Most dragonflies are permanent residents and survive our winters aseggs or larva. A few species migrate, including the variegatedmeadowhawk. This female is only 1.5 inches long.

They are very shy and wary, rarely allowing anyone to get near them.So I was completely surprised one day while exploring the KelloggWeaver Dunes, when this female came out of nowhere and landed ona blade of grass right in front of me. She not only let me takenumerous pictures of her, but also let me pet her on her abdomen.

Yellow-legged Meadowhawk (Sympetrum vicinum)

The last dragonfly of the season is the yellow-legged meadowhawk. Itis just 1.3 inches long. I have spotted them in November around bogsand marshes. They are even capable of surviving a week of autumnfrost. When they are the only dragonflies I see around, I always feel alittle sad, knowing the end of another season is near, and winter isaround the corner.

BRJA6 6/13/06 11:13 AM Page 21


The Mississippi’s quiet speedand deceptive power can getyou in trouble before you

know it, especially if you don’t keepan eye on buoys, lights, daymarksand other helpful signs of river navi-gation.

The U.S. Coast Guard places andmaintains the system of signs andsymbols on the navigation channel togive all boaters — from canoe pad-dlers to towboat pilots — a glimpsebeneath the surface and around thenext bend. Every sign has a meaning— sometimes more than one.

First, a few definitions: • Lights or beacons are perma-nently anchored lights. Most are so-lar-powered.• Buoys are floating markers, an-chored to the river bottom. A lot ofthem sit at the end of of wingdams.• Daymarks or dayboards are un-lighted, reflective graphic signs an-chored to posts in the river. They arewhat tow pilots are looking for whentheir searchlights scan the riverbanksat night. On the river charts day-marks are named, usually for a near-by river feature. Most daymarks havesmaller mile-marker signs belowthem that indicate the number ofmiles to Cairo, Ill., where the OhioRiver joins the Mississippi.• Port means the left side of theboat.• Starboard means the right side.

Nuns on the Right, Cans on the Left —Where the Buoys AreBy Pamela Eyden

KNOW YOUR RIVER

The 3-R Rule

The 3-R Rule is a mnemonic de-vice to help you remember theorder of marker colors and posi-tions:“Keep the red on your rightas you return from the sea,” or“Red, right, returning.”

Red and Green TogetherA marker with both red and greenmeans the channel is splitting in two,which happens where a major tributaryriver enters the Mississippi. The color onthe top marks the primary channel,which the big Mississippi would be. Forexample, if you are headed upstreamand green appears atop red, the Missis-sippi’s channel is to the right of themarker. If red is on top, the Mississippi’schannel is to the left.

(If you see a yellow marker, itmeans you have slipped all the waydownriver to the Intercoastal Waterwaythat runs between the mainland andthe islands fronting the Gulf.)

Obstruction Marks

Vertical black and white stripes on abuoy indicate an underwater obstruc-tion that extends to the nearest shore— avoid passing between the river-bank and the buoy!

Flashing LightsRed buoys and daymarks have red orwhite lights and a double flash. Greenbuoys and daymarks usually have greenlights and a single flash.

Other SignsA variety of other signs alert boat opera-tors to special areas or regulations.

No-wake zones, swimming areas, dan-ger-keep-out areas and piles of rocksmay be marked by other unlightedgraphic signs.

CONTROLLEDAREADANGER

BOATEXCLUS ONAREA

SWIM AREA NO WAKE

ROCK SLOW

Seeing GreenBuoys and markers that are green orhave green lights mark the edge ofthe channel on the port (left) side asyou head upstream.

Cans or can buoys are cylindrical.

Seeing RedBuoys and markers that are red orhave red lights mark the edge of thechannel on the starboard (right) sideas you head upstream.

Nuns or nun buoys are narrow at thetop and wide at the bottom.

BRJA6 6/13/06 11:13 AM Page 22


Lighting technology was a prob-lem for many decades. Buoys lightedwith compressed gas were commonfor about 30 years, in the early 1900s,but they were never safe, having atendency to blow up when workerschecked the pressure. Today mostbuoys are lit with power from batter-ies charged by solar panels that aresensitive enough to work with orwithout the sun. Channel-crossingmarkers are usually powered by on-shore lines.

Tender WorkThe job of maintaining the naviga-tion system is the work of specialvessels called river tenders. Theseconsist of a tow pushing a bargeequipped with a boom, a pile driverand two to four spuds. Spuds, whichare large, telephone-pole sized tim-bers, drop down through slots in thebarge to hold it in place while themarkers are replaced or fixed. In re-cent years, Global Positioning System(GPS) has allowed more precise posi-tioning of important navigation aids.

According to the U.S. CoastGuard, most aids to navigation arevisited by a tender at least once ayear, and more often if floods or tow-boats drag them off position. Some ofthe river tenders that work the Up-per Mississippi are the Wyaconda, theScioco and the Sangamon.

The Coast Guard only marks thenavigation channel, so if you ventureinto the backwaters or a side chan-nel, you’re on your own. Dangerousrock piles and closing dams may lieunmarked just below the surface.That’s why it’s a good idea to consultlocals.

Marinas that are off the MainChannel sometimes mark the waywith small buoys. Proceed carefullywhen following them.

The next time you’re out boating,look at the buoys and daymarks andsee if you can read the messages theycarry. To learn about signs not in thisstory, call the U.S. Coast Guard for acopy of its booklet on navigationaids. Or visit its website. F ��Pamela Eyden is news editor of BigRiver.

DaymarksDaymarks are unlighted signs thatmark the channel. Triangles, squaresand diamond shapes are most com-mon.

Green square signs are like canbuoys; they mark the port side of thechannel. Red triangle signs are likenun buoys; they mark the starboardside of the channel facing upstream.

Checkerboard diamond signs indi-cate that the channel is shifting fromone side of the river to the other. Asabove, green marks the left facing up-stream and red marks the right.

An Evolving SystemThe current U.S. navigation aid sys-tem has evolved since 1848, whenCongress adopted the system of col-ors, shapes, numbers and markerscalled the Lateral System. Before that,all buoys were manufactured and po-sitioned by independent contractors,which meant that they were all differ-ent and impossible to read unlessyou were a local. Of course, if youwere a local you probably didn’tneed them.

In the 1970s, testing showed thatthe color green was easier to see atgreater distances than black, so theblack “cans” became green.

Lights and sound were added tobuoys in the early 1900s. Some ofthese early inventions were prettystrange — one electric buoy wasequipped with a motion detector thatsounded an alarm, set off a rocketflare and lit a lamp when a shippassed close by.

BRJA6 6/13/06 11:13 AM Page 23


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Blufflands AllianceBy Lauren Elizondo

Blufflands Alliance


Abald eagle floats above theMississippi River as the sunsets behind the bluffs above

U.S. 61. The darkened outline of therocky ridge lined with trees presentsa striking contrast to the mauve-tint-ed sky. If taken care of, these bluff-lands can provide both scenic beautyand valuable habitat for wildlife forgenerations to come.

The Blufflands Alliance is a coali-tion of land trusts that have protectedthousands of bluffland acres alongthe Upper Mississippi River Valley.Six land trusts in Minnesota, Wiscon-sin, Iowa and Illinois form the Bluff-lands Alliance: the Iowa Natural Her-itage Foundation, Minnesota LandTrust, Natural Land Institute (Ill.), JoDaviess Conservation Foundation(Ill.), Mississippi Valley Conservancy(Wis.) and West Wisconsin LandTrust.

Mark Ackelson, president of theIowa Natural Heritage Foundation(INHF), and Dan McGuiness, who isnow the director of the Audubon Mis-sissippi River Campaign, were part ofthe group that helped form and intro-duce the Alliance at a kick-off confer-ence in 1993 held in Winona, Minn.

Ackelson said he and the otherBlufflands Alliance founders knewthat the river couldn’t be protectedwithout protecting the adjoininglands, and that one state or organiza-tion couldn’t do it alone.

Clint Miller, the southern regionconservation director for the Min-

nesota Land Trust,said the land trustswork together topreserve the scenic,agricultural, naturaland historical valueof land. They havealready protectedmore than 17,000acres of land in 35counties.

The Alliance hasno staff. Membersof each land trustfollow basic rulesset by the nationalLand Trust Alliance regarding plan-ning, evaluation, outreach and ethics,while members share their skills andresources to reach common goals.

“The Blufflands Alliance is the um-brella under which the land trustswork together,” said Ackelson.

Miller said the Minnesota LandTrust shares procedures with its Al-liance partners on how to monitorand enforce conservation easementsas well as other procedural duties.

“We helped, advised and shareddocuments with the Jo Daviess Con-servation Foundation a couple yearsago when they had no staff,” saidMiller.

Dave Skoloda, vice president ofthe Mississippi Valley Conservancy,said, “The Blufflands Alliance was in-strumental in helping us get started.It provided structure, discipline andhelp meeting standards for financial

assistance from the McKnight Foun-dation.”

The Blufflands Alliance is largelyfunded by the McKnight Foundation,a charitable organization based inMinneapolis. The foundation has agrant program dedicated to environ-mental support of the MississippiRiver. The Alliance is presently beingfunded by a two-year grant of$880,000 from the foundation.

“The McKnight Foundation is theprimary reason why the Alliance isalive,” said Miller. The Alliance alsoreceives funding from other nonprof-its, private donors and governmentalsources.

Currently, Alliance members areworking together to create a series ofeducational workshops. At press

Eagle Bluff Park, a protected public park, liesjust beyond a new residential developmentin La Crescent, Minn. (Minnesota Land Trust)

Eagle Bluff Park has a great view of Apple BlossomDrive and the river. (Marc Wood)

BRJA6 6/13/06 11:13 AM Page 25


time, a June workshop and field tripfocusing on land protection and man-agement to benefit neotropical migra-tory birds was scheduled in the Lans-ing, Iowa, area. Speakers includedAudubon Mississippi River Cam-paign Program biologist Jon Stravers.

When evaluating land to protect,Miller said the Alliance evaluates cer-tain conservation priorities, includingwhether the land has natural, scenicor cultural resources; threats to pres-ervation; and the significance of thethreat, if any.

One of the land trusts’ biggestchallenges is balancing land protec-tion with rural residential housingaround metropolitan areas, such asPrairie du Chien and La Crosse, Wis.;Winona and Red Wing, Minn.; andDubuque, Iowa.

“The pressure for rural develop-ment is much higher in metropolitanareas, because there are more com-muters and people living in largercities,” said Miller.

Rural residential housing createspressure to divvy up the land in waysthat disrupt the integrity of the for-ests. This harms wildlife, includingmigratory birds and bald eagles.

How It WorksAlliance land trusts work with

landowners who donate or sell con-servation easements on their land.The easement includes permanentdeed restrictions that prevent someland uses, such as development,though landowners continue to ownthe property. Landowners are free tosell the land, but the easement stayswith the land. Easements often re-duce income and estate taxes for thelandowners. Land trusts also protectland by acquiring it through donationor sale at less than its fair market val-ue, providing tax benefits for land-owners as well.

For example, Miller said thatthrough conservation easements, theMinnesota Land Trust has protectednearly 600 acres of land along the Ap-ple Blossom Drive, an officially desig-nated scenic byway between La Cres-cent and Dresbach, Minn., on CountyHighway 29. The 17-mile drive risesout of La Crescent into bluff country

through forested ravines and hillscovered by apple orchards, meadowsand farmland.

Once the conservation easement isnegotiated and settled between thelandowner and the land trust, thelandowner continues to manage theland as long as he or she does not vi-olate any of the contract provisions.

“The easement stays with the land,not the landowner — meaning it per-manently restricts and protects prop-erty,” said Miller.

However, land easements do notopen the protected land to public

recreation unless landowners givetheir consent.

Miller said the Minnesota LandTrust only works with willing land-owners who are interested in long-term protection; the land trust cannotforcefully take people’s property.

Special ProjectsIn addition to the Alliance’s collec-

tive endeavors, each land trust workson individual projects.

This year the Iowa Natural Her-itage Foundation reprinted A Bird’sEye View: A Guide to Managing andProtecting Your Land for Neotropical Mi-gratory Birds in the Upper MississippiRiver Blufflands, which was originallyprinted in 2003.

Cathy Engstrom, INHF communi-cations director, said the book helpslandowners prepare and maintaintheir land in a way that will benefitbirds, like the cerulean warbler, ruby-throated hummingbird and otherneotropical migratory birds, whichmigrate to Central and South Ameri-ca and the Caribbean for the winter.

“Some birds are generalists —they’ll eat anything, but other birdsonly eat one type of seed or berry,”explained Engstrom. “If one link inthe chain is broken, it can spell disas-ter for that species.”

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Miller said the land trusts’

biggest goals are

protecting larger parcels of

land from being subdivided

and sold for housing.

BRJA6 6/13/06 11:13 AM Page 26


The book is free and can be or-dered or viewed on the website.

Another example of land trustwork is the recent acquisition by INHF of 1,045 acres of land adjoiningthe Effigy Mounds National Monu-ment near Marquette, Iowa. The landconnects the monument to a part ofthe Yellow River State Forest. INHFpurchased the land from private sell-ers with federal funds, two stategrants and more than 1,300 privatedonations, then transferred the prop-erty to the National Park Service inDecember 2000.

The monument includes dozens ofIndian mounds — some in the shapeof animals — on the bluffs above theMississippi.

Engstrom said the acquisitions ex-panded Effigy Mounds NationalMonument by 70 percent and helpedconnect more than 4,000 acres of pub-lic land.

“Bigger is always better [whenprotecting sections of land]. It helpssupport more species,” said En-gstrom.

Another Blufflands Alliance part-ner, the Wisconsin-based MississippiValley Conservancy, acquired 450acres last winter for the La CrosseBlufflands Protection Program.

The conservancy created an agree-ment with the City of La Crosse in2001 to protect an eight-mile strip ofblufflands surrounding La Crosse,

said Skoloda, who was the first Mis-sissippi Valley Conservancy presidentfrom 1997 to 2000.

Of the 3,000 acres of blufflands theconservancy intends to preserve,Skoloda said it has already protectednearly half.

“It has been such a successful pro-gram that neighboring cities havebeen interested in it,” said Skoloda.

For instance, Miller said he hasprovided land trust information toWinona’s environmental quality com-mittee, which has showed an interestin the La Crosse Blufflands ProtectionProgram.

As for long-term goals, Miller saidthe Blufflands Alliance land trustswill continue to protect natural andscenic features of the blufflands.

Miller said the land trusts’ biggestgoals are protecting larger parcels ofland (320 acres or more) from beingsubdivided and sold for housing, anddrawing more attention to the bluff-lands region to attract federal pro-grams to help defray the cost of pro-tection.

“As an alliance, it gives us a lot offlexibility and power. We can effec-tively promote the blufflands as animportant place to protect,” saidMiller. F

Lauren Elizondo is a recent graduate ofWinona State University, who nowlives in the Twin Cities. This is her firststory for Big River.

Thanks to the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, this newly-acquired land connects the Effigy MoundsNational Monument to a part of the Yellow River State Forest, forming an unbroken corridor for wildlife.(Effigy Mounds National Monument)

BRJA6 6/13/06 11:13 AM Page 27


Doug Wood

Back to the BluffsBack to the Bluffs

BRJA6 6/13/06 11:13 AM Page 28


Peregrine falcons, top predatorsof the skies, continue to reclaimancient nesting sites in three

states on the Mississippi River bluffs.Nest sites stretch from Lynxville,Wis., to Maiden Rock, Wis. Bob An-derson, head of the Raptor ResourceProject in Bluffton, Iowa, said eight oflast year’s nine productive cliff nestssupported nesting pairs again this

year. He sees potential for at least twonew nest sites along the corridor nextyear — one pair of peregrines hasbeen seen at a cliff near Homer,Minn., and another near Lock & Dam9 at Lynxville. That’s big news forboth the species and the river valley.

Before widespread use of the pesti-cide DDT wiped out the species inthe eastern United States in the 1950s

and early 60s, peregrine falconsraised their young in nests, calledeyries, high on the ledges of bluffsoverlooking the Mississippi River. Acaptive breeding program, which An-derson began in 1971, helped estab-

lish a nesting population on powerplant smokestacks. The first success-ful smokestack nest was occupied in1989 in Bayport, Minn., on the St.Croix River. Since then, 14 smoke-stack nests, stretching from Cohasset,

Bob Anderson rappels down Great Spirit Bluff outsideLa Crescent, Minn. (Dave Kester)

A peregrine perches near its eyrie on Maiden Rock. (Allen Blake Sheldon)

These chicks were banded at Great Spirit Bluff this year. (George Howe)

By Fran Howard

“Maiden Rock is the

matriarch of the cliffs,” said

Anderson.“It overlooks Lake

Pepin and is a wonderful

place to watch falcons.”

BRJA6 6/13/06 11:13 AM Page 29


Minn., to Cassville, Wis., havefledged more than 500 young. By2000, smokestack peregrines had be-gun to successfully reclaim the riverbluffs. Since then, 81 peregrineshave fledged from the bluffs.

Last year, peregrines establishedthree new eyries: at Minnesota’sGreat Spirit Bluff, just outside LaCrescent, on privately owned landprotected by a Minnesota LandTrust conservation easement; Iowa’sWaukon Junction eyrie in AllamakeeCounty, the state’s first cliff nestingin more than 40 years; and Wiscon-sin’s West Bluff in Pepin County.

Nesting pairs returned to six oth-er cliffs lastyear. Thetwo in Min-nesota —Queen’sBluff andJohn A.Latsch StatePark — areboth ownedby the Min-

nesota Department of Natural Re-sources. The others are in Wisconsin:Lynxville cliff in Crawford County;Castle Rock Cliff in TrempealeauCounty; Maassen’s Bluff in BuffaloCounty; and Maiden Rock in PierceCounty. In Wisconsin, all of the cliffsoccupied by falcons are privatelyowned, except Maiden Rock, the lastcliff in Wisconsin to report nestingfalcons in the 1950s. The West Wis-consin Land Trust recently pur-chased this bluff.

“Maiden Rock is the matriarch ofthe cliffs,” said Anderson. “It over-

(Peregrines continues on page 60)

Above: Peregrines can fly over 180miles per hour.

Right: Bob Anderson and crew banda peregrine chick.

(All photos this page courtesy of theRaptor Resource Project.)

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A falcon perches above power lines at Xcel Energy’sBlackdog Power Plant at Eagan, Minn.

BRJA6 6/13/06 11:14 AM Page 30


Belvedere Mansion1008 Park Avenue

Galena, Illinois 61036Open to the public

May thru October 2006Sunday - Friday: 11 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Saturday: 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.

BRJA6 6/13/06 11:14 AM Page 31


This year’s Friends of the Upper Mississippi RiverRefuges Annual Photography Contest (the ninth)drew dozens of entries from photographers of all

persuasions — amateur and professional, adult and child.They submitted photos in three categories: People on theRefuges, Refuge Wildlife and Refuge Landscape.

Some of those photographs are reproduced here. First,second and third place winners were chosen from each cat-egory, and 10 were selected for honorable mention.

The colorful show of winning photographs has been ontour since February. In July, you can see it at the NationalMississippi River Museum and Aquarium in Dubuque,Iowa. In August it will appear at the U.S. Fish and WildlifeService Regional Office at Fort Snelling in St. Paul. Plansfor September were still tentative at press time, but theshow is likely to be on display at Krueger Library on thecampus of Winona State University in Winona, Minn. Formore information, call Cindy Samples at 507-494-6216.

Capturing the Refuge

Manley Dahler, First Place, People on the Refuges

BRJA6 6/13/06 11:14 AM Page 32


Brian Thompson, Third Place, People on the Refuges

Stan Bousson, Second Place, Refuge Wildlife

Mike Earley, First Place, Refuge Wildlife

BRJA6 6/13/06 12:23 PM Page 33


The Friends of the Upper Mississippi RiverRefuges (FUMRR) is an independent, nonprofitorganization that works to support and im-prove the Upper Mississippi River NationalWildlife and Fish Refuge, the Trempealeau Na-tional Wildlife Refuge and the Driftless AreaNational Wildlife Refuge. Members join one offour chapters — in Savanna, Ill.; McGregor,Iowa; La Crosse, Wis.; and Winona, Minn.FUMRR is part of a nationwide Friends organi-zation of more than 250 chapters.


John Zoerb, Honorable Mention, Refuge Wildlife

Doyle Gates

Les Zigurski, Honorable Mention, Refuge Wildlife

Doyle Gates, Second Place, Refuge Landscape

BRJA6 6/13/06 12:23 PM Page 34

Lisa Brainard Brian Thompson

James Boisen Randi Mehus

John Zoerb, Honorable Mention, Refuge WildlifeHailey Samples

BRJA6 6/13/06 12:23 PM Page 35



Hawks View Cottages& Lodge

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overlooking historic Fountain City,Wisconsin, and Hawks View

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CALL US TOLL-FREE:1-866-293-0803 Natalie Barnes, Honorable Mention, People on the Refuges

Richard Neumann, First Place, Refuge Landscape

Les Zigurski (detail)

BRJA6 6/13/06 12:24 PM Page 36

BRJA6 6/13/06 12:24 PM Page 37


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BRJA6 6/13/06 12:24 PM Page 38

Some people never outgrow theneed to look for hidden treasure.“Letterboxing” is a treasure hunt

involving clues, orienteering, hiking,exploration and art. It’s an outdoorsgame you play with people you nevermeet. Letterboxing along the UpperMississippi will take you to somescenic and interesting destinations.Finding the letterbox is an addedtreat.

Looking to ramble along the riverone afternoon, we decided to tryhunting for our first letterbox. Wedownloaded clues from a website andheaded to a nearby rivertown. Afterdriving a switchback road to the topof a bluff, we paused to admire theview, took a compass reading andwalked until we located the head of atrail. We’d never noticed this slightbreak in the trees before.

“Walk 50 paces down the trail,”the clues said.

“Down” was the key word.“Find the wiry tree,” the clues said.This was odd, as most of the trees

stood straight and tall. However, theclue had another meaning and whenwe found the right one, we used thecompass to set another heading. Withsocks pulled up over our pants legs tokeep the ticks out, we charged off in-to the bush, looking for a rock ledgeand then two fallen trees that formedan “X.”

A short time later, hidden undersome sticks and leaves, we found the

letterbox — a plastic boxinside a plastic bag. Insidethe box was a hand-carvedstamp and a small note-book. The notebook pageswere half-filled withbright-colored hand-carved stamp artworksand messages from peoplewho’d found the box be-fore us. It truly was a trea-sure!

Following tradition, weread the other messages,put our own stamp in thebook and wrote a message.Then we used the letterboxstamp in our logbook,recording the date and place. Hidingthe box again, we retraced our steps,taking time to cover our trail.

It Came from the MoorFor a lot of people, finding that

first letterbox launches a new hobby.This pastime can become addictive.

According to the letterboxing.orgwebsite, letterboxing began in 1854,when a gentleman hiker left his cardin a bottle at a remote location in theDartmoor region in England. Thereare said to be thousands of letterbox-es in Dartmoor National Park now.The clues are complicated, and peo-ple spend weeks tramping around themoors looking for the boxes.

The game jumped the Atlantic inthe late 1980s. Smithsonian magazine

wrote a story about it in the April1998 issue, which gave the hobby abig boost. Aficionados refer to thePre-Smithsonian Era and the Post-Smithsonian Era of letterboxing.There are more than 5,000 Post-Smith-sonian Era letterboxes hidden in theUnited States. A few years ago therewere only one or two letterboxes nearthe Upper Mississippi River; nowthere are dozens.

To search for letterboxes you needthe clues, which you can find a num-ber of ways, although the most acces-sible is on a website devoted to thegame. You’ll also need a hand-carvedrubber stamp, an ink pad, a log book,a pencil, shoes on your feet and a lit-tle time on your hands.


LetterboxingHobby, Pastime, Puzzle and Another Way toExplore the River

When you find a letterbox, you can read messages from thosebefore you and leave your thoughts for those who follow.

(Letterboxing continues on page 63)

By Pamela Eyden

BRJA6 6/13/06 12:24 PM Page 39


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BRJA6 6/13/06 12:24 PM Page 40


in Minneapolis.The indigo-blue building, designed

by French architect Jean Nouvel tomirror the shapes of the grain milland elevator buildings nearby, incor-porates three separate theater venuesand gives theatergoers a spectacularview of the Minneapolis riverfront.

Monster Poison IvyChapel Hill, N.C. — If you’ve everseen a big poison ivy plant — a reallybig one, thick as a strong man’s arm,winding around a tree trunk and fan-ning out onto the branches — thenyou’ve got an idea what the futuremay hold for the Upper MississippiRiver.

Poison ivy is naturally lush andthick on most islands and floodplainforests. Global warming conditionsmay give it a big boost.

Researchers from Duke and Har-vard University have found that poi-son ivy thrives when carbon dioxide(CO2) levels are high. An experimentused a system of pipes to pump CO2

in a forest plot to levels that are likelyto be found in northern temperateforests in the year 2050. The vinegrew 150 percent faster than normal,spread more rapidly and produced astronger concentration of urushiol,the compound that is the “poison”part of the ivy.

More than 350,000 Americans each

year seek treatment for the itchy rashand weeping red blisters caused bycontact with poison ivy.

Poison ivy and its relatives are notthe only plants that would be favoredby global warming; all woody vineswould grow faster, which wouldchange the nature of northern forests.Many woody vines strangle the

(River News continued from page 15)

The new Guthrie Theatre was designed to harmonize with the industrial buildings on one side and thecylindrical grain elevators on the other. (Guthrie Theatre)

BRJA6 6/13/06 12:24 PM Page 41


plants they climb on. “Our results indicate that Toxico-

dendron taxa will become more abun-dant and more ‘toxic’ in the future,potentially affecting global forest dy-namics and human health,” said theresearch report. (Proceedings of the Na-tional Academy of Sciences, 5-30-06)

Peregrine AttacksSartell, Minn. — Keep your witsabout you and wear a helmet ifyou’re going to cross the MississippiRiver bridge in Sartell, upriver of St.Cloud, Minn., in early summer.

That’s what a half dozen pedestri-ans discovered in early June as theygot to the middle of the bridge.

Cathy Copa said she never saw thebird coming.

“It felt like a full body hit to me.She hit me on the side of the head,and I just flew forward a little, stum-bling.” The irate mama peregrine hither three times before Copa escapedinto the cab of a pickup truck, accord-ing to a report on WCCO-TV.

A few days later, a pedestrian wasinjured when the falcon dive-bombedhis head eight or nine times in themiddle of the bridge.

The falcon’s nest was mountedhigh on a nearby smokestack and shewas protecting her young from tres-passers she thought were coming alittle too close.

The city considered removing themother bird or removing the wholenest. After consulting with University

(River News continues on page 55)

Send entries for the next contest to Big River by the deadline below. If weselect your photo to print in these pages, we’ll send you three free copies

of the magazine. The contest is open to amateurs and professionals, adultsand kids. Email a digital JPEG (.jpg) photo file — high-resolution photos on-ly, please! — to [email protected]. Write “PHOTO CONTEST” in thesubject line.

Or send a print to Photo Editor, Big River, P.O. Box 204, Winona, MN55987. (We cannot return photographs, though.)

Include your name, address, phone number and a short description ofthe photograph — who or what it is, when and where it was taken, etc.

The deadline for the September-October issue is July 19, 2006.

Winner of the River Lovers’ Photo Contest

Drew Cooney took this picture in Minneapolis on a cold winter’s day. Drew will be entering thephotography program at the Art Institute of Chicago this fall.

BRJA6 6/13/06 12:24 PM Page 42


Duke Addicks Tells River TalesDuke’s upcoming schedule on board the riverboat Mississippi Explorer

Call (563) 586-4444 for reservations.

•Sunday, July 23 Black Hawk War Cruises, depart Lansing, Iowa at 1 and 3:30 p.m.•Saturday & Sunday, September 23 & 24 Don’t Forget Zeb Pike Cruises, departPrairie du Chien,Wisconsin at 2 p.m.

•Or schedule any of Duke’s River Tales presentations on a Chartered Mississippi ExplorerCruise for your group.

WATCH WILD EAGLES WITH EAGLE EXPERT DUKE ADDICKSListen to American Indian Eagle and Thunderbird Legends and Lore

Learn the Latest Scientific Knowledge about EaglesDuke will share his knowledge as an eagle expert and relate his eagle legends and loreas the major presenter on both days of these two upcoming eagle watching festivals:

Guttenberg Eagle Watch, January 13-14, 2007The 20th Anniversary Sauk Prairie Bald Eagle Watching Days, January 20-21, 2007

• Ride along with Duke on his regularly scheduled eagle watchingvan tours at the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge in Bloom-ington, Minn., or schedule one of Duke’s tours for your group. (952-858-0740)

• Attend or schedule one of Duke’s presentations at the National Ea-gle Center in Wabasha, Minn., and view both wild and captive ea-gles there. (651-565-4989)

• Attend on July 27 at their Family Night one of Duke’s presentationsat the Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul andview the captive eagles with him there. (612-624-4745)

• Select an eagle-watching location and meet Duke there with yourgroup or make Duke’s presentation part of your community or or-ganization’s eagle-watching events and environmental educationprograms.

• INFORM YOURSELF ABOUT WILD EAGLE WATCHING.Duke has a new website containing all Duke knows about WatchingWild Eagles, including the considerable knowledge gained from hisexperience and training at the Raptor Center and the National Ea-gle Center.

www.DukeAddicksStoryteller.com (651) 643-0622 [email protected]

The Barn RestaurantPrairie du Chien,WI

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BRJA6 6/13/06 12:25 PM Page 43


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McGregor MarinaFull service gas dock & rentals

McGregor’s Beer & Brat GardenFamily Restaurant

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BRJA6 6/13/06 12:25 PM Page 45


Wed – Sat 10-5; or by appointment80 South 2nd Street • Lansing, IA 52151(563) 538-9285 • www.bigriverforge.com

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TREASURE ON THE MISSISSIPPI WisconsinThe Cassville Car Ferry

The Fun Way to Crossthe Mississippi!

Cassville bp Amoco-Piccadily316 Deniston StreetCassville, Wisconsin 608 / 725-5181

2 blocks from the Mississippi River

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Great River Road Stop & Go

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BRJA6 6/13/06 12:26 PM Page 48

Featuring homemade desserts,sandwiches, soups and salads

in a cozy atmosphereHours: Sunday 9:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.

Monday - Saturday 7 a.m. - 7 p.m.

Gregory’s Gifts & Greetings101 East Third Street

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BRJA6 6/13/06 12:26 PM Page 49


BRJA6 6/13/06 12:26 PM Page 50

ALMA WISCONSINOn the Great River Road/National Scenic BywayAlong the banks of the Mississippi River

Water Lily GiftsUnique Gifts for Special People

111 North Main Alma, WI 608-685-4911

Open Daily10:00 - 5:00

Step into Living History

www.almawisconsin.com

Alma..a great Mississippi River destination!Snoop around a Small Vintage River Town for fun!

Downtown Courtesy DockLocated just below Lock/Dam #4 Downtown Alma

Come off the river and stroll, stretch or shop downtownAlma Marina Harbor mile marker #754

Full service/repairs/docks/public launching

Mossy Hollow Walking TrailsWinding trails of a lush ravine with some unusual

flora and scenic views. A birder & explorer paradise!Off Hwy. 35 south end of Downtown

Buena Vista Walking TrailsEnter on 2nd Street – watch for entrance sign.

Hike or drive up to Buena Vista Park 500 ft. above Alma – View miles of the Mississippi River valley.

12 Historic Step StreetsConnecting Main St. & 2nd St. peek at secret backyard

gardens and scenic river views

Lock & Dam #4-DowntownWatch barges and other river craft lock through

September 3 – All Day SundayArt and Music Festival

Under the trees along the banks of the Mississippi RiverAlma Marina & Beach Harbor Recreation Area

Craft/Art/Food vendors – watch the artisans at workand non-stop music

1 mile North of Downtown Alma off Hwy. 35 on Harbor Road

For updated information and upcoming events:www.almawisconsin.com

[email protected]. Box 202

Alma, WI 54601608-685-4442 or 608-685-3330

Alma LeatherIndividually Custom-Made Leather Handbags,

Backpacks, Accessories and Clothing

(608) 685-4775 [email protected] North Main St., Alma, WI 54610

BRJA6 6/13/06 12:26 PM Page 51


BRJA6 6/13/06 12:26 PM Page 52


Get FestiveRiverboat Days in Wabasha, Minn., July 28 to 29, will fea-ture a Grumpy Old Men fishing tournament and offer, forthe first time, rowing shell rides.

The Tug in LeClaire, Iowa, and Port Byron, Ill., August 10 to13, halts river traffic to pit teams from each city in tugs ofwar across the Main Channel.

Eat a catfish sandwich at Catfish Days in Trempealeau,Wis., July 7 to 9, and take in a craft show, flea market, pa-rade and fireworks.

Thousands of bicyclists will roll into Muscatine, Iowa, atthe end of RAGBRAI, on July 29, during with the city’sGreat River Reunion fest, featuring a craft show and Ja-maican music.

Enjoy Lamont Cranston and the Siegel-Schwall BluesBand at the laid-back Prairie Dog Blues Festival on his-toric St. Feriole Island, Prairie du Chien, Wis., July 28 and29.

Step back in time at the Barron Island Rendezvous atPettibone Island, La Crosse, Wis., July 28 to 30, with re-en-actments and old-time arts and crafts.

The Celtic Highland Games in the Quad Cities on August26 promises Scottish athletic competitions, dancing andbagpipe competitions, lots of Celtic music, and sheepherding demonstrations.

The venerable and always popular Stockholm (Wis.) ArtFair is on July 15.

“RiverWay 2006: Bridging the River – Connecting theContinent” will celebrate the first railroad bridge to crossthe Mississippi, from September 14 to 18. In addition totrips on a steam locomotive and steamboat, an image ofthe original bridge will be projected over the river.

BIG RIVER CALENDAR

Much to do on the MississippiMove that Body

In July and August join a free Mississippibiking or walking tour led by a Park Ser-vice ranger in the Twin Cities. Register forbike rides; just show up for scheduledwalks at the Mississippi River Visitor Cen-ter at the Science Museum. The Park Ser-vice is also offering programs at St. Antho-

ny Falls this summer. Call (651) 293-0200 for times or viewonline.

Canoe or Kayak down the Wisconsinand Mississippi Rivers on the GreatRiver Rumble from Sauk City, Wis., toDubuque, Iowa, July 29 to August 5.Sign up online or call (708) 747-1969

Paddle a canoe or kayak with the Mis-sissippi River Challenge in the TwinCities on August 5 and 6. Saturday willtake paddlers through Minneapolis, and Sunday will be-gin at the Mississippi-Minnesota River confluence andtravel the St. Paul reach of the river. Call (651) 222-2193,ext. 19, or register online for Saturday or both days.

Sign up for the two-hour Wildflower Walk at Grey CloudDunes in Cottage Grove, Minn., on August 10, cospon-sored by the Friends of the Mississippi River and the Min-nesota DNR. Call (651) 222-2193.

Pedal along rivers from Rockford to Alton, Ill., on theGreat Rivers Ride, September 10 through 16. Bike thewhole stretch or for just a day or two. Call (877) 477-7007,ext. 217, email [email protected] or visit thewebsite.

Ernie Boszhardt will speak on archaeology of the UpperMississippi River at the Whitewater State Park visitor cen-ter, Elba, Minn., on July 2 from 8 to 9 p.m. On July 8, KennySalwey, The Last River Rat, will speak from 8:30 to 9:30p.m. Call (507) 932-3007.

Learn about the hidden history of Minneapolis in “Under-ground Minneapolis : Archaeology in the Mill City,” atthe Minneapolis Public Library, with sessions on August 14,21 and 28. Free, but register early, (612) 630-6155 or online.

Living Lands & Waters is holding workshops for teachersand interested citizens, including “The Mississippi River:Shifting Currents,” in Rock Island, Ill., on July 31 to August2. Call (309) 236-0725 or email [email protected].

Learn about controlling asian carp at a forum in Peoria, Ill.,“The Invasive Asian Carps in North America,” August 22to 23. Visit the website or email [email protected].

Learn Something New

Visit the Big River website for linksto these events.

www.big-river.com

BRJA6 6/13/06 12:26 PM Page 53


Freeloaders remained in the FreeSpirits group.

Initially, the Punishers groupmembers did a lot of punishing toforce Freeloaders to kick in moreunits.

Initially, members of the Free Spir-its group profited more than the Pun-ishers group, but by round 4 bothgroups were about equally profitable.Then the Punishers’ fortunes quicklyclimbed as those of the Free Spiritsquickly declined.

With the reversal of fortunes forthe two groups, nearly all the remain-ing Freeloaders abandoned the FreeSpirits group for the Punishers group.After they joined the Punishers, Free-loaders quickly started investing likeChumps, and they embraced sanc-tions more enthusiastically than thetypical Chump did.

Overall, in the Punishers group,big contributors tended to be bigpunishers. As the experiment pro-gressed, less punishment was used,as more members changed their be-havior to optimize everybody’s profit.By about the 20th round the systemshad stabilized, with the high con-tributing Punishers members nowmaking more money units than theFreeloaders in the Free Spirits groupmade in their heyday during the firstfew rounds.

I am interested in this and similarstudies, because I often find myselftrying to figure out why societiesseem unable to maintain or increasethe value of those things that every-body owns in common and needs tosurvive: air and water being the mostobvious. It should be easy to recog-nize the benefit to every individualand to the community as a whole ifthe groundwater is clean. Clean wateris nice, of course, but everybodysaves an enormous amount of moneyif we don’t have to dig deeper wells,filter our water and buy bottled wa-ter. Everybody is healthier, if theyhave clean water to drink and cleanair to breathe. Why, I ask myself, arethese issues so difficult to figure out?

Or consider the Upper MississippiRiver. We all invest in and profit fromthe river, though more of that profit

might be in pleasure units than inmoney units. The important point isthat studies like this one give mehope that we are capable of creatingsituations in which we can exerciseour judgment and act in ways thatpromote the common good, whilemaking the system as a whole moreefficient.

The real world is much more com-plicated, of course, but the same prin-ciples that apply to the experimentshould apply to other human endeav-ors. Sanctions, for instance, are votesfor or against politicians; they aredollars spent or withheld from a mar-ketplace or product; they are activi-ties that we participate in or avoid.We are all, however, stuck in thesame group with the same resources.People rarely move from one state toanother or from one country to anoth-er for philosophical reasons.

People also do not have a lot oftime to investigate the products theybuy or the companies that make themor the companies that make the mate-rials that go into making the prod-ucts. Despite all the talk these daysabout “partnering” and “incentives,”the simplest and most effective wayto protect the value of the resourceswe all share and depend on is to cre-ate clear limits on what any individ-ual or organization can do to degradetheir value. When an individual ororganization crosses the line and de-stroys the value of a resource, theyshould face sanctions that cost morethan enough to repair the damageand are more expensive than any fi-nancial advantage the violator mayhave gained. This not only protectsour common property and the healthof society, it also creates a level play-ing field for all the players by takingaway any possible advantage to con-suming or spoiling the commonwealth.

We all have a bit of the Chumpand the Free Loader in us. We wouldjust as soon avoid all the sanctions wecan, but we also want to be protectedfrom those who would take advan-tage of us. We could all just wait forwidespread enlightenment, or we canreach for the sanctions. F

(Riverbank continued from page 5)

BRJA6 6/13/06 12:26 PM Page 54


The nastiest stuff on a boat isusually found in the bilge.Motor oil, transmission oil,

sometimes hydraulic fluid andeverything else makes its way to thelowest level. All of that gets mixedwith water that seeps into the boator finds its way down there after arain or a washing.

As the bilge fills, a float rises andactivates a bilge pump that pumpsthe nasty fluid overboard, into theriver. This could earn the boater a$5,000 fine, because discharging oilywaste from the bilge is illegal.

To reduce oily discharges, manyboaters put oil absorbing pads, or“socks,” in the bilge that soak up oilbut not water, but only oil that

comes into direct contact with thesock. They get replaced when theycan’t hold any more oil.

A few years ago, pollution fromboats in the city harbor at PassChristian, Miss., was ruining nearbyoyster beds. Most of the fishing andworkboats were wood and over 25years old. Their bilges were virtuallyimpossible to clean, because oil hadsaturated the wood over the years.As the boats leaked water in andthen pumped it out, the oil becamepart of the discharge, according toliterature from Centek Industries,which makes the BilgeKleen system.

The harbormaster saw an ad for abilge filter system and had them in-stalled on some of the worst offend-ers. The results were so impressivethat the city council required allboats in the city harbor to have sometype of bilge cleaning system. Soonthere was not only less sheen on thewater, but the water quality in the

oyster beds improved considerably.Now agencies throughout the coun-try are studying the use of bilge fil-ters.

The Marine and EnvironmentalEducation Foundation (MEEF) is anational group whose mission is tocreate programs that will help pro-vide cleaner water for the boatingpublic. While not endorsing anycommercial products, it sent a letterto Centek acknowledging that theBilgeKleen system makes for cleanerboating.

I cruised the Mississippi last sum-mer from Alton, Ill., to Minneapolis,reviewing all the marinas for Quim-by’s Cruising Guide. For that trip, I in-stalled one of Centek’s BilgeKleenfilters. Centek is primarily known asa leading manufacturer of wet ma-rine exhaust systems, but also makesmarine environmental products.

Installation is simple. The hosefrom the pump to the thru-hull is cutand the filter is spliced into the line.The assembly consists of a clear,plastic canister containing a replace-able filter. This sits in a bracketmounted to a solid surface. This“hydrocarbon removal matrix car-tridge” removes 100% of all hydro-carbons without restricting bilgepump flow rates. After I installed it,I flooded the bilge with water tocheck the flow. It did not seem to beaffected.

I forgot about it until I had majorengine problems and started dump-ing oil into the bilge from one en-gine. The system worked. The yel-low filter turned black and oily, butmy discharge didn’t.

It seems to be a simple, reliablesystem. For my 32-foot boat, I need-ed the unit that retails for about$100. The filters come in a variety ofsizes to accommodate different sizedboats. F

Gary Kramer is a boater and freelancewriter who lives in Rock Island, Ill.His last article was “Bob Myers, BoatBuilder,” May-June 2006.

Greener Boating with a Bilge FilterBy Gary Kramer

of Minnesota Raptor Center experts,though, they decided to leave thebirds alone and put up warning signsfor pedestrians, instead.

“Basically, you travel at your ownrisk if you cross this bridge,” said po-lice chief Jim Hughes.

Raptor Center experts said the at-tack was unusual. Most falcons areaggressive only within a few hun-dred feet of their nests.

Since falcons generally return tothe same nesting territory every year,the city of Sartell should probablysave those warning signs.

Peregrines can reach speeds of upto 180 mph when they dive in pursuitof smaller birds.

Zebras of the NorthSt. Paul — The Upper MississippiRiver, from its confluence with thePine River north of Brainerd, Minn.,all the way to the Iowa border, hasbeen formally declared infested withzebra mussels. The Minnesota De-partment of Natural Resources(DNR) announced in May that the in-vasive mussels had been found inRice Lake, a backwater lake north ofBrainerd, meaning that the riverabove the Twin Cities is infested. Pre-viously, just the river extending fromthe Twin Cities to the Iowa borderwas infested.

To slow the mussels’ advance, theDNR is still advising boaters to re-move all visible aquatic plants; drainall water from live wells, bilges andbait buckets; and spray or rinse boatsand let them dry thoroughly for fivedays before putting in at anotherbody of water. The fact that musselshave spread to the whole river in-creases the likelihood that they’ll bespread by boaters to other unconnect-ed waters.

Zebra mussels are small shellfishnamed for the stripes on their shells.They are native to the Black, Azovand Caspian Seas. They have infestedthe Great Lakes region from Vermontto Minnesota, and the Missouri, Ohioand Illinois rivers, as well as sectionsof the Mississippi.F

(River News continued from page 42)

The results were so

impressive that the city

council required all boats in

the city harbor to have some

type of bilge cleaning

system.

BRJA6 6/13/06 12:26 PM Page 55

Come and Join in having some wave jumping FUN!!!

Explore the Mississippi River

For more information, contact Leon Genther

(563) 505-8787 [email protected]

BRJA6 6/13/06 12:27 PM Page 56

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A Place to Sew - Gather the Gals . . . . .47Accola Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24Alma, Wis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51American Boating Centers . . . . . . . . . .37American House Inn . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44Badger State Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48Barn Restaurant,The . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43Belvedere Mansion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31Beno’s Deli . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49Best Western Quiet House & Suites . . .66Big River Forge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46Bird Song . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24Blooming Grounds Coffee House . . . . .49Blue Heron Coffeehouse . . . . . . . . . . . .9Bluff Country Co-op . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10BNOX Gold & Iron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36Braschler’s Bakery & Coffee Shop . . . . .6Cassville Amaco-Piccadily . . . . . . . . . .48Cassville, Wis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48Century 21 Pepin Office . . . . . . . . . . . .30Channel Cat & River Road Gallery . . . .46Chestnut Mountain Resort . . . . . . . . . . .1Crawford County Arts Festival . . . . . . .54Dairyland Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42Deer Tracks Log Cabin Community . . .65Docksides Mercantile . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13Duke Addicks Storyteller . . . . . . . . . . .43Eagles Landing B&B and Winery . . . . .44Eagles Roost Resort . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48Edina Realty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41Fountain City, Wis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50Franciscan Spirituality Center . . . . . . . .41Fulton, Illinois . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4Galena Cellars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31Great River Café . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12Great River Harbor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10Great River Road Stop & Go . . . . . . . .48Great River Shakespeare Festival . . . . .27Greater Downtown Muscatine Assoc. .52Gregory’s Gifts & Greetings . . . . . . . . .49Grumpsters Log Cabin Getaway . . . . .45Hansen’s Harbor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21Hartland Log Homes . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40Hawks View Cottages . . . . . . . . . . . . .36Island City Harbor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38John Deere Pavilion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40Julia Belle Swain . . . . . .inside front coverKFAI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40Lake City Tourism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20Lansing Fish Days . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30Lansing, Iowa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46-47Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum . . . . . . .12LewzianaKitchen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8Long’s Garden, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9Magnolias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49McGarrity’s Inn & Suites . . . . . . . . . . .47McGregor Coffee Roasters . . . . . . . . . .45McGregor Lodging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44McGregor Marina, Beer & Brat Garden 45McGregor-Marquette, Iowa, Chamber .44

Minnesota Marine Art Museum . . . . . . .2Mississippi Canoe Challenge . . . . . . . .19Mississippi Explorer Cruises . . . . . . . . .1Mississippi River Explorer . . . . . . . . . .47Murphy’s Cove Bed & Bath . . . . . . . . .46Muscatine Convention & Visitor Bureau38National Eagle Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14Naturally Guttenberg . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62Nola’s Flowers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49Northern Breezes Sailing School . . . . .58Norton’s Restaurant, The . . . . . . . . . . . .6Oar d’oeuvre Restaurant . . . . . . . . . . .15Ole Miss Marina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6Onalaska Bike Trail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15Otter Side of Nature, The . . . . . . . . . .44Padelford Packet Boat Tours . . . . . . . .24Paper Moon, The . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45Pepper Sprout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62Piccadilly Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58Pickle Factory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11Pieces of the Past . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49Prairie du Chien, Wis., Tourism . . . . . .43Prairie Funland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63Pretty Things on Third . . . . . . . . . . . . .49Red Geranium Gifts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47Red Wing Pottery & Smokey Row Cafe . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13River City Vacation Rentals . . . . . . . . .62River Huis Traders Antiques . . . . . . . . .42River Log House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63Riverview Restaurant . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45River Wood Studio & Big River Buttons .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46Riverboat Twilight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61Riverfront Centre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6Rivers Edge Restaurant . . . . . . . . . . . .46RiverWay 2006 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38Robert J. Hurt Landscape Photographer .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61Carroll County, Ill. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe . . . . .14Signatures Restaurant . . . . . . . . . . . . .23Smith Brothers Landing . . . . . . . . . . . .11Spook Cave & Campground . . . . . . . .45Stonefield Village . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4Stoney Creek Inn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65Thornton House B&B & Mt. Hosmer Jam

Shop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46Touch of Class Interiors . . . . . . . . . . . . .4Twisted Chicken, The . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58Uncle Charlie’s Cabin . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46Unique Creations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48University of Iowa Press . . . . . . . . . . .18Valley Fish & Decoys . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43Villa Louis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4Waterways Journal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58Wild Rose Timberworks . . . . . . . . . . .65Willows, The . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20Winona County Hist. Soc./Visit Winona . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26Winona, Minn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49Xcel Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31Yellow Bird Art Quilt Shop . . . . . . . . . .47

Advertiser Index

BRJA6 6/13/06 12:27 PM Page 57


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careers. Laws that protect whistle-blowers from retribution aim to pro-tect the public and taxpayers fromgovernment misconduct.

“The odds were somewhat daunt-ing before,” explained Ruch. “Thenumbers are so embarrassing now,they are being omitted from Congres-sional reports.”

When the current Special Council,Scott Bloch, took office in January2004, he inherited a backlog of about700 disclosures pending investigation.He dropped them all without review,

to clear up the backlog, according toRuch.

In 2001, Sweeney was given twoawards: Public Servant of the Year,from the Office of Special Council,and the National EnvironmentalQuality Award from the Natural Re-sources Council of America. He wasthe first recipient of the Environment,Science and Technology - Service toAmerica Medal from the Partnershipfor Public Service in 2002.

He always accepts awards on be-half of all other Corps employees.

“I got almost unanimous supportfrom almost all the Crops employees Iknew who were GS 13 or below,” hesaid, referring to the ranking systemfor federal employees.

However the reaction from higherranking Corps employees was just theopposite. Sweeney said their attitudewas, “No matter what you do, younever take it outside the organiza-tion.”

The situation is especially frustrat-ing for the many hard-working, rank-and-file employees who want to dogood work.

Michael Grunwald, national staffwriter for the Washington Post, cov-ered Sweeney’s story and Corps cor-ruption in depth.

“It was huge,” he noted. “It cer-tainly convinced my editor that weneeded to go deeper.”

Sweeney had strong documenta-tion to back up his claims. Grunwaldwent on to write about broader prob-lems in the Corps. He also coveredthe Corps’ Everglades project for thePost and recently wrote a book aboutit, The Swamp.

His stories told how Corps bossesformulated a plan to grow the Corps’budget by pushing more projects, in-cluding environmental rehabilitation.Most senators and members of con-gress go along with it, because manyof the projects supply jobs and moneyto their constituents, whether or notthey have any real value to the na-tion. Only a handful of legislators —mainly environmentalists and conser-vatives — have been pushing forCorps reform.

Grunwald said he wishes that hecould claim that his revelations aboutthe Corps helped clean up the agency,but it appears to have just closedranks and carried on. Even the deathsin New Orleans have had little im-pact.

Often the Corps is paid millions ofdollars to study the feasibility of amulti-million-dollar or multi-billion-dollar project that they would over-see.

“Sort of like giving a new car deal-er some extra money to evaluate foryou if you should buy his alreadyvery expensive new car rather thancontinuing to drive your older, slow-er, but perfectly functional (and paidfor) car, isn't it?” Sweeney said.

Shortly after the original Naviga-tion Study was discredited and aban-doned, the Corps began another,more expensive Navigation Study,which recommended new locks.

“I think it’s worse now than whenthey were doctoring the numbers out-right,” Sweeney said. “It’s embarrass-ingly laughable.”

Many of the locks have been reha-bilitated since the 1990s, but shippingon the river is on a steady declineanyway.

“I see a 40-percent decline in trafficsince the [first] study started. Youwould get a return of less than a dime

on a dollar on your investment.”The new Navigation Study asked

for $2.4 billion for new, longer locksand $5 billion for environmental pro-grams on the rivers.

“It’s a clever policy ploy, but Ithink it’s transparent,” he said, citingalso the $8 billion Corps project to re-store the Everglades.

Nevertheless, Sweeney’s case hashad long-term effects, both positiveand negative.

“His case is still talked about like ithappened yesterday,” said PEER’s

Ruch. “I have people come up to meand say, ‘I want a Don Sweeneydeal.’”

And more people are filing caseswith the Special Council, even if theyare not being investigated.

“The Corps has become better atcheating,” Ruch admitted. “All Corpsdecisions are done by teleconference,and all participants are forbidden toleave with notes.”

“I don’t see how to break this cy-cle.” Sweeney said. “Someone downthe road may end up having to dothis again.”

Looking back, Sweeney is stillcomfortable with his decision.

“I have no regrets, other than that Ihad to do it,” he said.

“I’m enjoying my retired life. I’mvery happy to be back in academia. Ienjoy working with the students.”

“I’ve become a beacon of falsehope for thousands.”

Reggie McLeod is editor of Big River.

For more background, see the Big Riverwebsite for a series of stories on theNavigation Study published in Big Riv-er in 2000 and 2001.

(Donald Sweeney continued from page 64)

“I think it’s worse now than

when they were doctoring

the numbers outright,”

Sweeney said.“It’s

embarrassingly laughable.”

“I don’t see how to break this

cycle.” Sweeney said.

“Someone down the road

may end up having to do

this again.”

BRJA6 6/13/06 12:27 PM Page 59


looks Lake Pepin and is a wonderfulplace to watch falcons.”

Three sites are ideal for falconwatching. A wayside rest is conve-niently located below Maiden Rock.“If you turn off your car, you can sitin the parking lot and hear the falconstalking to each other, courting eachother,” Anderson notes. The Lynxvillenest is also located by a wayside rest,but perhaps the best place to watchthe birds is Waukon Junction.“There’s no traffic,” Anderson said.“It is so quiet.”

The best opportunity for peregrinewatching is when the birds first re-turn from South America in earlyFebruary until they lay their eggs inApril. During this time, the birds arecourting and protecting their nestsites from other large raptors migrat-ing up the river. “Any time a hawk oreagle ventures near the nest site, youcan see why peregrines are top dog,”

explained Anderson. “They come outlike kamikaze airplanes and beat upthe other birds.”

It’s also fun to watch falcons whenthe young fledge in late June or earlyJuly. The young falcons taking theirfirst flights tend to stay within a mileor two of the cliff where they wereborn.

“They are quite vocal when they

are begging for food from the adults,”said Anderson. “You can hear themfrom a mile away, if there is no traf-fic.”

In mid-October, the birds begintheir long migration to South Ameri-ca.

Anderson estimates that the riverbluffs from Red Wing, Minn., toCassville, Wis., can support between20 and 24 nesting pairs of peregrines.Besides, there’s another populationthat could also be restored.

“We used to have a tree-nestingpopulation that nested in originalgrowth trees lining the riverbanks,”he said. These birds used old eagle,osprey and crow nests. “By the mid-to- late-1800s, we lost the tree-nestingpopulation. I think the time has cometo restore the tree-nesting population.If the cliffs become too populatedwith houses, a tree population wouldhelp assure the perpetuity of the riverpopulation.” F ��

Fran Howard is a freelance writer,based in St. Paul, who specializes inwriting about conservation andwildlife, among other topics. This is herfirst story for Big River.

(Peregrines continued from page 30)

MINNESOTA

WISCONSIN

IOWA

Trempealeau

Harpers Ferry

Lake City

Wabasha

Dakota

Lansing

Lynxville

Maiden Rock

Fountain City

Red Wing

Winona

La Crosse

Prairie du Chien

Queen's Bluff

John A. Latsch State Park

Waukon Junction(Leo’s Bluff)

Castle Rock

Maiden RockWest Bluff

Maassen’s BluffNelson

La CrescentGreat Spirit Bluff

Lynxville Cliff

This nest box sits high over the river near Red Wing, Minn. (Raptor Resource Project)

Watch for peregrines in flight around MaidenRock. (Raptor Resource Project)

Locations of peregrine cliff nests are shown in blue. You can track the status of the falcons at manyof these nests on the Raptor Resource Center website.

BRJA6 6/13/06 12:27 PM Page 60


BRJA6 6/13/06 12:27 PM Page 61


BRJA6 6/13/06 12:27 PM Page 62


For SaleNew Log Home on the

Mississippi River, 40 milessouth of La Crosse, panoramicviews of the river from everyroom, standard constructionwith full log inside and out,three spacious bedrooms, threebaths, living room with fireplaceand cathedral ceiling, gourmetkitchen with granite countertopsand stainless appliances, garage,boat dock, professionally land-scaped, mature apple trees, sundeck, central air-conditioningand heat, designer furnished,1800 sq. feet, owner/broker

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La Pointe St., Prairie du Chienwww.prairiefunland.com

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• Go-Kart Racing• Miniature Golf• Arcade Fun• Refreshments• Driving Range

Summer Hours:10 a.m. - 10 p.m.

EXPANDING FUN JUST FOR YOU!

LetterboxersDan, a 24-year-old computer pro-

grammer, found his first letterboxlast summer, but already he’s got thestamps of 87 letterboxes in his book.

“Letterboxing to me has been agood way to get exercise and get outto places I wouldn’t normally go, butmostly I like solving the clues. It’slike an endless treasure hunt that hasparts everywhere. Plus, I just like col-lecting the stamps and keeping arecord of where all I have been,” heexplained.

John, an art teacher, and his fi-ancée Sara, look for letterboxeseverywhere they go.

“Sometimes we plan whole tripsaround letterboxing,” John said.“One of our main trips was to Michi-gan, where we found 64 letterboxesin one weekend. We did a lot of hik-ing that weekend.”

They’ve found 300 letterboxes sofar, and have placed quite a few inwhat they call the “Upper Mississip-pi River Series,” the “Wizard of OzSeries” and the “Popeye Series” ofboxes. They once drove across thecountry, placing boxes in their“Route 66 Series.” Sara writes storiesthat have the clues in them. Johncarves the stamps.

“We’re getting married soon, sowe have had to cut back on the letter-boxing, but I’m working on clues andciphers to make it more challenging,”John said.

Beginners usually start with huntsthat have simple, explicit clues. Ad-vanced letterboxers prefer more of achallenge. Some clues are purposelyvague. Other clues may be mathe-matical, written in a foreign languageor a code. Some may have you lookfor one box in order to find the cluesto a second one. Sometimes a seriesof letterboxes is only available for ashort time, like the “Twelve Days ofChristmas Series” last year. Letter-boxes aren’t always even boxes —you might have to find a certain per-son at a certain flea market and say asecret word in order to get the stamp.

Some people play an elaborategame, while others keep it simple.

Terri, who’s found 61 and placed sixboxes, was simply looking for a fami-ly activity last summer, when sheheard about letterboxing.

“Probably the best part of thishobby is that it makes you stop andspend a little time discovering way-sides and points of interest, naturetrails, parks and even places in thecity that you’ve sped by in your car,”she said. “But learning to use a com-pass and learning the types of trees,like shagbark hickory, is really neat,too.” F ��Pamela Eyden is news editor of BigRiver.

(Letterboxing continued from page 39)

Things you’ll need

➣ Clues fromletterboxing.org

➣ Carved rubber stamp

➣ Ink pad

➣ Log book

➣ Pencil

➣ Shoes on your feet

➣ Time on your hands

What’s in a Clue?(excerpt)

“With a bit of huffing an’ puff-ing, you’ll have a great view ofthe Mississippi River. Enter thepark that has all those steps. Nocomplaining :). It ’s worth it!Start stepping. Pass “The Sil-vers” on your right. … When youreach the end of the first longflight of stairs, an outcrop givesyou a great view.…. Get to thespot where you have a sprawl-ing birch at 158°, a cedar at296°, and the point of the bluffdue north of you. About tenpaces off the trail look for anoutstretched arm beckoningyou to search the hole in itstrunk. There you will find thesteamboat. Please wedge thebox back in the trunk. Goodluck!”

BRJA6 6/13/06 12:27 PM Page 63


Donald SweeneyHolding the Corps Accountable

RIVER PEOPLE

In 2000, revelations from DonaldSweeney, an Army Corps of Engi-neers economist, shook the Upper

Mississippi and rattled politicians andcivil servants in Washington, D.C.However, although two generals anda colonel implicated in the scandalquickly announced their retirements,the course of the Corps’ policy onlyhesitated for a short time before re-suming, according to Sweeney.

“The organization is dysfunction-al,” he said. “You get waste from thisdysfunctional system, and at worst,people die, as in New Orleans.”

Sweeney began working for theCorps in February 1978, when he wasa graduate student at WashingtonUniversity, in St. Louis, where heearned a doctorate in economics. Heworked on economics and study man-agement for the Corps’ St. Louis Dis-trict, but was often involved in stud-ies in other districts as well. He wasassigned the job of technical managerof the economics workgroup for theUpper Mississippi River-Illinois Wa-terway Navigation System FeasibilityStudy — better known as the Naviga-tion Study — when it began in 1993,and he helped oversee the entirestudy. Congress launched the study toconsider ways to increase the efficien-cy of shipping on the Upper Missis-sippi and Illinois rivers.

By the late 1990s, the economicsworkgroup was finding that expand-ing a handful of locks from 600 feet to1,200 feet to speed up shipping didnot make economic sense, because thecost would be much higher than theirbenefit to shipping, even over a 50-year period. Sweeney’s bosses werenot happy with that discovery.

Col. James Mudd, who headed the

Rock Island District andthe Navigation Study,wanted the study to rec-ommend the immediateconstruction of new locks.He changed some of thenumbers in the economicssection of the study tomake lock construction ap-pear to be economicallyfeasible, according toSweeney.

“I was suspended whenI stepped in and confront-ed Col. Mudd,” Sweeneyrecalled.

He was taken off thestudy and replaced by anengineer in late 1999.

“I filed my disclosure with the Of-fice of Special Council in January2000,” said Sweeney.

The Office of Special Council is re-sponsible for protecting whistleblow-ers from the federal government. It

found in his favor and recommendedthat his charges be investigated. TheArmy’s Inspector General and a com-mittee appointed by the NationalAcademy of Sciences each investigat-ed his charges and both backed up hisclaims and pointed out deep systemicproblems in the Corps. Two generals

and Col. Mudd were reprimandedand soon after announced their retire-ments. The study, which had costmore than $50 million, was declaredruined and was scrapped. Storiesabout the Corps “cooking the books”ran on the front page of major news-papers.

Sweeney received a leave from theCorps and took a teaching post at theUniversity of Missouri-St. Louis. Heretired from the Corps on Jan. 1, 2005,and now teaches full time and servesas assistant director of the university’sCenter for Transportation Studies.

A national group, Public Employ-ees for Environmental Responsibility(PEER), worked with him on hiswhistleblower case. PEER’s executivedirector, Jeff Ruch, told Sweeney thathe was “a beacon of false hope forthousands,” because the odds were sostacked against whistleblowers. Veryfew cases went anywhere.

Employees who expose misconductrisk damage to their job security and

(Donald Sweeney continues on page 59)

The study, which had cost more

than $50 million, was declared

ruined and was scrapped. Stories

about the Corps “cooking the

books” ran on the front page of

major newspapers.

By Reggie McLeod

BRJA6 6/13/06 12:27 PM Page 64

big river magazine, july-august 2006 · july-august 2006 falcons return to the cliffsfalcons return...

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