Starting at home

It had been 584 miles since we started this trash-mapping journey. This time, we got to take off from our home base…Cooper’s Landing at the historic Port of Nashville!

Yesterday was not a day of resting up for the trip, thoughtfully packing gear or anything like that. The day before was the first ever (and maybe the last according to some cold, wet souls) “Great Flying Carp Canoe Clean-up” thrown by the River Ladies Auxiliary (RLA), a homegrown bunch of trash-cleaning river-lovers that know how to have a good time.

We put 14 canoes and kayaks out on the river to clean up 10 miles of the Missouri, from Katfish Katy’s at Huntsdale to Cooper’s Landing downstream. It was a day of extreme mud-slogging and tire-rolling followed by an afternoon of cold rain followed by a soggy trash sort and clean-up of the clean-up. I won’t go into it too much here, but everybody involved was truly impressed by everyone else’s heroic feats. Extreme clean-up!

So seeing the crew arrive at Cooper’s Sunday morning ready for action was pretty inspiring…

We loaded the boats up with gear and hunkered down for a speedy trip through Southern Boone County. I saw the bluffs at my home zip by, and we were off to meet up with our camera crew at Noren Landing in Jefferson City. Our first 35 miles were a cold, autumn colored blur (punctuated by stops to put on more layers). We weren’t starting our mapping until mile 135 so we could get to Hermann by nightfall

Movie stars?

At Noren Landing, we picked up Tom Newcomb of Technosonic Studios and the sound crew. Tom has joined us several times on the trip. He’s filming a short piece on the MegaScout for “Missouri Outdoors”.

Scouting with a camera crew is always a little different experience. This time, Dan was wired up, and occasionally we'd crack a joke, forgetting that he was miked until the sound guy would chuckle in the bow of the Saskia.

Usually, we'll swing the boat around to get a closer shot of a refrigerator or trash pile, but with a camera crew, you sometimes come back for a better angle of the maple-covered bluffsides ignited with a spot of sunshine.

As we approached the mouth of the Osage River, we were looking at shores that we had cleaned back in May during our first Bonnots Mill clean-up. At that time, river levels were pretty high... now they were in the midst of a daily drop as the navigation season ended. Coves we had boated into before were now high and dry...a couple-minute walk from anywhere we could land now. With the lower water, we could see large deposits of trash on banks that were underwater in May.

We thought about cruising up the Osage to stop by our friend Soda Popp's place across from Bonnots Mill, but Hermann was calling our name and the day was getting late...

Pay attention to the river, dummy

As we approached the Hermann bridge, I pulled in close to shore, checking out under the bridge for the usual scrap metal and party debris when I heard the clattering sound of gravel and sand on the prop. I looked up to see Tim and Gary Leabman at the ramp. In between us and them was an emerging sandbar blocking the way.

I shut the motor off and we found ourselves stuck in sand, just a couple hundred feet from the trailer waiting to haul our boat up the hill to the Spirit Hill Guest House.

Oops...

Melanie hopped out to give us a push, and pretty soon Dan, Mel and I were all slogging thigh deep through the chilly water, pushing the Saskia into a narrow band of deeper water near shore. Moods darkened and the first signs of hypothermia crept in as we trailered the boat, hopped in the van and headed up the hill.

The Angels of Spirit Hill

On all the river journeys that River Relief takes, there are angels around each bend, giving us just the advice or help we need. Old farmers with a stack of aged Osage Orange for the fire ("Fire Angels"). A river rat with advice on the best campsite around ("River Angels"). The wonderful friends that keep our bellies full at clean-ups and send us on scouting trips with boxes full of homemade baked goods ("Food Angels").

And on the MegaScout, there are the "Ramp Angels"...people that emerge from the world above the banks to bring just what we need just when we need it. People like John Brady, wading in the river up to his waist at Indian Cave State Park to bend our props back into shape. The Columbia USGS crew who spent the evening on our sandbar and then let us spend the morning in their hotel room in Blair, NE, for showers and wireless internet. Racin' Dave and Sue, waiting for us at Franklin Island to pull out our boats just minutes before the rain started.

In Hermann, our ramp angels came from Spirit Hill, the old German cemetery up on a bluff above the river. Gary Leabman and his wife Marcia own a beautiful guest house above the cemetery. Gardens spill down the hill behind the house, framed by blazing autumn maples and the sun setting over the hazy river valley.

Gary had heard about our journey this summer from Mike Cooper, and offered to house us for a night when we came through Hermann. A night of civilization when temps were supposed to drop well into the twenties was impossible to turn down.

Our drenched coveralls went in the dryer and Gary propped our soggy mudboots up in front of a fan to dry. The smell of fresh baked brownies filled the warm home, and hot showers felt like impossible gifts from the river gods. As we stood on their back porch, the largest raft of white pelicans I'd ever seen floated above us, in their graceful sychronized river of white and black.

The night was full of stories from the river and from back in Boone and Moniteau Counties (where Gary used to live). The world series played all night on the tube.

Still basking in the good vibes (and bodily exhaustion) of Saturday’s clean-up in Sugar Creek, MO, (at La Benite Park) our MegaScout crew hit the river once again on Sunday morning. We motored downstream at full throttle to get down to where we left off mapping this summer (the infamous river mile 333 – ‘halfway to hell’).

Fairly soon, a strange sign caught our eye –

“Free Mud Rubs”

Of course, we immediately knew where we were …good ol’ Alligator Cove, with Capt. John Breyfogle hailing us from his kayak. We stopped by for hugs from John, Janie, Stew and Bethany, and quickly hit the river again, preparing to start our mapping again.

With the sun above and the fall breeze in our faces, we were home on the river again. Anyone sitting on the banks may have wondered why these goofballs in their jon boats were whooping like coyotes.

One thing we obviously noticed as we prepared for the Oct. 7 La Benite clean-up was that much of the plastic debris we saw just above the waterline this summer had since been swept away. The seasonal flush of the river had changed the visual picture of the river, but we found that our general rating system still made sense. The general patterns of trash distribution seemed to hold true even as river levels changed.

Passing the miles that we cleaned up on Saturday was incredibly fulfilling, until we saw a few spots that we weren’t able to get crews to. This river-cleaning business requires an unbelievable optimism and a faith in the future responsibility of river lovers everywhere.

We came across another sign of the ephemeral and well-travelled nature of river trash just before we got to the Baltimore Bend National Wildlife Refuge. Almost 100 miles downstream from the last place we saw it (just above Leavenworth, KS), we found a hotwater heater floating amongst some driftwood. Spraypainted on the side was “400.8- 7/06-MRR”. It’s an appliance we saw on our summer leg of the MegaScout – our first found “tagged” item of the trip! (Back in Atchison, we found three refrigerators we had tagged – at La Benite we found a tagged bathtub).

Sunday night was spent upstream from Waverly. We built a campfire along the riprap with some of us sleeping alongside it. Others crashed up on the bank amongst the trees, with possums crashing around in the undergrowth like bears and herons squawking above under the almost full moon.

A whole new world of trash

Down in mid-Missouri, where I live, trash and the Missouri River are somewhat synonymous. A common pastime during high water crests is to count the refrigerators as they float by. We’ve been known to spend hours nosing our boats into rafts of driftwood picking out plastic trash before the river levels drop.

At River Relief’s home port, Cooper’s Landing near Columbia, MO., we’ve had five consecutive years of river clean-ups. We really seem to be making a dent…the river is much cleaner than in the past. It has something to do with the relatively low water we’ve had in recent years, I’m sure, but we’ve definitely had an impact on the general background noise of plastic.

So, I had the feeling that the upper reaches of the Missouri would be similar, that once we hit a few towns and tributaries, we’d be knee deep in trash once again.

Not the case, as the MegaScout showed us.

When you look at our MegaScout trash map, you can see the influence that big cities, and even small towns, have on the trash ratings in their vicinity and downstream. But until we hit Kansas City, we didn’t see anything like what we are used to down here.

Near Kansas City, three major tributaries enter the Big Muddy: the Kansas River (the Kaw), the Platte and the Blue. Each of these passes through urban and suburban areas, collecting more than their share of trash on their way to the Missouri. By the time we passed the Blue River (which had a small mountain of trash at its mouth), the banks on both sides of the river were blanketed with an even coating of plastic mulch. Bottoms adjacent to the river were choked with balls, toys, barrels and tires. And bottles and bottles and bottles…

As we progressed downstream, the density of trash abated somewhat, but in certain areas where the river widens out, the amount of trash was still much more than anything we’d seen upstream.

I am most familiar with the Blue River, which empties much of the Kansas City metro area. The Blue River Rescue, a huge volunteer clean-up along many miles of the Blue, takes place each April. It’s been going on for 15 years and every year tons and tons of trash get pulled out of that river. Yet, undisputedly, the banks of the Missouri River below the mouth of the Blue were the trashiest we saw on the previous 420 miles.

Something else about the Blue. Kansas City’s treated wastewater gets put right into the Blue (adding to its otherworldly aroma). What I didn’t know until recently is that Kansas City has a combined storm and wastewater sewer system. There are not separate pipes for what gets flushed and what runs off the streets. When there is a local rain event, the system gets overwhelmed, and only about 5% of the city’s wastewater gets treated. Everything else gets flushed into the Blue, then into the Missouri.

Kansas City is not the only place where this sort of thing happens, and the city is in the process of beginning to fix that problem (more about that in later blogs).

Just downstream of the Blue, a small stream enters the Missouri called Lazy Branch. The creek comes out of Independence and Sugar Creek, Mo., and by the time it gets to the Missouri, it is full of white foam and has a caustic odor of detergent combined with sewage. I will be looking into what is going in this creek to pass that knowledge on, but this is what I can report to you from what we saw on the MegaScout:

Below Lazy Branch, the riprap and sand that lines the Missouri’s banks become coated with a green algae. The smell from the small creek extends for miles downstream. At the sandbar we camped at that night, about five miles downstream near the town of Missouri City, we awoke completely socked in by a thick river fog. Trapped within the fog was that same caustic odor I noticed at Lazy Branch.

There were several places along our journey where we didn’t feel right swimming in the river because of inflows we noticed pouring in. This was one of them, but I admit that I went ahead and swam anyway, ignoring the strange odor.

I hope to be around one day when the Missouri River has gained more respect from those of us that live along it. A day when the idea of dumping our leftovers and undesired waste into its waters will seem blasphemous and people will be angered by the idea. Will you join us in making this day happen?

-Steve Schnarr

Becoming Trash Scientists

This blog contains a lot of personal reflections about this trip down the Missouri. It has given us an opportunity to share aspects of living on the river and our deepening relationship with her.

But first and foremost, we are on this river to become trash scientists.

The product of this journey is an evolving database about trash on the Missouri: where it tends to accumulate, what patterns in density are there in relation to population centers, where are there historic and recent dumps, how are trash densities different on different stretches of the river? Basically: How trashed is the Big Muddy?

What better way to answer that question than to get out on this river?

As our boats move downstream, each boat scouts a bank of the river. The crews on board scan the shore with binoculars while the boat pilot checks out the big picture. The conversation is, admittedly, a little boring:

Scout: “Is that a log or a hot water heater?”

Pilot: “I can’t tell. Let’s go check it out” (Boat swings behind wing dike. An electric whine as pilot tilts boat motor. A heron spreads its wings and vacates the area with an annoyed squawk.)

Scout (squinting through binocs): “It’s a hot water heater. Can you get in there?”

(Pilot shrugs, and Scout moves to the bow of the boat, probing the depth of the water with a canoe paddle as the boat moves to shore. As they land, Scout hops ashore, takes a digital photo of the heater, marks the point on handheld GPS unit, and approaches the appliance with a spray paint can.)

As our first week progressed, we kept coming up with more questions. Where are these refrigerators coming from? How far do they travel? Finally, Charlotte Overby came up with the idea of spray-painting the river mile, date, and MRR on the backside of appliances. We know that high water will lift many of these huge objects again, sending them further downstream. We are hoping that, either in river clean-ups or by talking to people who spend time on the river, we’ll find out where some of these things end up and how long it takes them to move.

Each of those points that are GPSed, from a single refrigerator to a local dump site, are recorded separately on our data sheet. In addition, each mile on the river gets rated for the trash density and what kind of trash there is.

This is the scale:

0 Clean to rare small trash
1 Scattered small trash
2 Small trash scattered & occasionally in concentrations
3 Like 2 but with occasional large trash
4 Frequent concentrations of trash, scattered large trash
5 Freq. concentrations,large trash &/or dumps

Again, more scintillating conversation:

Scout: “What do you think, a 2?”

Pilot: “I don’t know. There wasn’t much small stuff, but there were those barrels and that refrigerator and that boat access was pretty trashed. I think it’d be a 3”

Scout: “I agree.” (bends over data sheet and scribbles entry: “3 barrels, refrigerator, small trash at boat access, less small trash rest of the mile”)

All of this data collected during the day, including photos, comments, trash ratings and GPS points get entered into our laptop “Betty” each night around the campfire. Dan is the data entry guy. His presence right there on the river makes the whole thing work better, and any questions he has on someone’s rating or comments get answered as the data goes in.

The data is entered into spreadsheets that are linked to an ARC-GIS map of the Missouri River. With software donated by the St. Charles office of ESRI, Tim Nigh, Dan Belshe and Kim Horton (of Mo-RAP) created a linkable route file following the channel of the river. Once the data is entered, users can click on any point on the river, and find out what the trash rating and any comments for that stretch is. Any point files or photos show up as a star, and can be accessed by a click.

The major innovation that Dan, Tim and Kim developed is a color-coded line that follows each bank of the river. “Zero” trash ratings show up as a cool blue, and the colors range from yellow to orange to red as you move up the scale.

As you zoom out from the map, the patterns become obvious. On the upper reaches of the river, small trash tends to collect on the inside of the river bends. At each population center, there is a flash of orange or red, as more trash ends up on the banks. Depending on the size of the city, the higher ratings often continue downstream.

For big cities, such as Omaha, there are often pulses of trash downstream, possibly showing where high water events have dropped trash as river levels crested and fell. At points where the river widens on a sharp bend, there are often larger accumulations of trash. Some communities show an obvious dedication to cleaning up their banks, while other places are more neglected.

So what do we do with this information?

Some of these maps are already being used. Vicki Richmond is working the “West Coast” of the Missouri River, planning our fall clean-ups in Omaha, Atchison and Sugar Creek (see our website www.riverrelief.org for specifics). She’s been whipping the maps out in meetings, showing visibly to our clean-up partners what we will be accomplishing on those weekends. They are already proving useful in coming up with strategies for getting people out on the river and getting the trash out of there.

We will be working on getting maps to other communities and government agencies along the river. If you have an interest in cleaning up your stretch of the Missouri, contact us so we can get the info to you. We won’t be able to clean every stretch of the Missouri ourselves, but by working with YOU, our community of fellow river lovers, we hope to make a dent in changing the way people view this wonderful resource.

Thanks to a donation from ESRI, the designers and distributers of the ARC software that we used for these maps, we will work toward getting these maps online, making the information accessible to everyone along the river.

Also, we will be using these maps as educational tools, showing children how the plastic bottles and tires that end up in their streams will travel and collect further downstream on the Big Muddy. That we all live both upstream and downstream, and the only ones that can make a difference in the quality of our rivers are US and it all starts in our backyards.

Please contact us if you have comments, questions or requests for information. Or just to let us know that you want to play a part in our mission to clean-up the Missouri River.

Missouri River Relief
P.O. Box 463
Columbia, MO 65205
(573) 443-0292
email: riverrelief@riverrelief.org
website: www.riverrelief.org

Crew Completes First Leg of Mega-Scout

Well, we did it......I return home with a great sense of satisfaction and pride. We covered 420 miles over 2 weeks. We mapped all of the trash and made new friends and associates along the way. We were featured frequently on TV and in the newspapers. And we did it with skill, integrity, comraderie, and a deep appreciation for the river.

It was hard to leave the river yesterday and return to our "normal lives. But we will be back on the river soon, hosting education events and river clean ups. And we will complete the remaining 333 miles of scouting this fall...

Stay posted.

A wonderful week comes to an end – Melanie Cheney
The River Refuge at Alligator Cove
River Mile 343
July 29^th, 2006

So here we are at Alligator Cove on our last day of the trip. Stew Miller and Janie Breyfogle cooked a lovely organic breakfast with coffee, espresso, and the works! A big thanks to Captain Brey who allowed a bunch of stinking, low energy, river rats camp at his wonderful place for two nights! It was great.

We boated up river Saturday morning to La Benite Park for our Boats & Brauts event (or as we've been calling it, Boats and Brats...after our own moody & grumpy selves.) Vicky and Mike Richmond helped put together an awesome event. Being a native plant person, I was so pleased that there were native plant people there, and rain garden extraodinaire's. They auctioned off some beautifully painted rain barrels by local artists, while our guys took people out on boat rides. In the meantime, the rest of us lounged around in the shade eating brauts, listening to music, and watching some really talented jugglers who rode around on unicycles.

As it wound down, I wanted to get out on a boat. Tim told me I was welcome to take one out if I felt ready enough to become a certified boat driver. After months of training, and a week of navigating this unpredictable river, I told him I was ready.

Stew hopped in with me, and then 5 people came walking down the bank. These people included organizers, Blue River people, the guitarist and one of the jugglers. I was thrilled to be able to take them out on the river, some who had never even been out on it in a boat! It was so exhilarating and cool. We had great conversation about our natural resources and what we do. The ride was incredibly smooth and pleasurable, one I will never forget.

Back at camp, everyone went into lounge mode, now that we were officially done doing good deeds. Anthony caught the fishing bug, and finally caught himself a catfish. And Tim & Dan slept in front of the Cardinal's game, one slumped over in each direction, looking like they were dead.

Stew never took a break, preparing for his dinner for 40. Some friends of Alligator Cove pulled a bbq grill up, and helped cook. They actually cooked us steaks to order! So tasty, we stuffed ourselves silly. Mike Richmond gifted me with a pint of Jim Beam and we passed it around.

After dinner we all meandered down to the boat dock for a sunset cruise. Anthony was of course already in the boat, as he had become one with the boat over the two weeks. If he wasn't driving it around, he was sitting in it , fishing off of it, or sleeping in it. Heidi finally made it in, and they were out tooling around in the cove. Out of the blue, and much to Heidi's surprise I'm sure, a crazy fish (flying carp) jumped in the boat. Heidi quickly moved to the front as we all yipped and hollered from shore. While Boudreaux got his whacking stick out attempting to whack the flopping massive fish, Heidi couldn't take it anymore and dove off of the boat, head first, clothes and all. It was hilarious! Unfortunately, my life jacket got slimed in the process. Uggghhhh!

After waiting around for everyone, we finally took the Saskia, the Char, and the Stous' houseboat upriver to a big sandbar we had camped on 2 nights before and played like children in the big muddy river one last time.

We headed back to Alligator Cove, navigating the dark river exquisitely, and watched the setting crescent moon. Later we all ended up on the deck overlooking the water, and had a really nice circle session, in which we went around and praised each other and what we do, passing the maple twig.

What an amazing experience and chance of a lifetime. I've learned and experienced so much, sharing this life energy with my closest friends, and my beloved Big Muddy. Instead of feeling drained and worn out like most of the crew, I came back energized and happy.

Some thoughts on our crew – Melanie Cheney
River Mile 380, above Parkville, MO.
July 26, 2006

Dave and Fran Stous have been a wonderful addition to the crew, patiently trailing along with us and hanging out. The original plan was for their houseboat to be the mothership, but plans quickly change on the river, and we had everything covered. So they were wanting to do something more for us, although contented just to be on the river and going along for the ride.

We gave them the important task of sending out messages in a bottle, which is a great job, and Fran began to write our daily messages along with the information we had already printed out about the megascout.

They are such a wonderful and cute couple. Did I mention that they are wonderful? Fran is a psychiatric nurse (that makes 2 with Nancy!) and is really nice and down to earth. Although they are both really quiet, and like to go off to fish and eat by themselves, they are also really inquisitive and knowledgeable. Dave is a water quality engineer and geologist. He answers many of our questions and tells us about the water treatment & power plant outflows. Too cool. He's also a great captain & navigator, as well as on the board of River Relief. Incredible people.

Then there is Dan, our GIS intern, world traveler, dynamite guy, smart, funny, and totally fits in with the crew and can do anything. Aside from that, he primarily keeps track of the data, photos, & megascout database with maps & all on his laptop Betty. This week, he got a phone call on a sandbar near Atchison from a private intelligence collection agency looking for an interview with him. Out of this world! This guy is definitely going places (but I think we are going to try and keep him).

Life on the River
7-26-06

Our boats are moving deeper into Missouri and Kansas. We've travelled 332 miles since we first put our boats in the water. They've become our home, our closet, our kitchen and our workplace. We swim up to the gunwales to get served a snack. They are our travelling shade and the way we set juglines for fishing. They are our mobile data collection office and maproom, housing our GPS units, maps, data sheets, binoculars and cameras and getting us close to shore to check things out.

They are our touchstone to land, taking us to the sandbars that are our bed and to the river accesses that resupply us. We use them to take people out on the river. Families or journalists, some have only looked at her from her banks or from bridges. Then they're out in it, the current swirling around them. They are swallowed up in this water world, a part of this flowing heart of the heartland.

We've become a part of this world. People know who we are when we approach them on the river. "You guys are the surveyors, huh?". Or "You the ones that clean the river?" There is often the follow up question..."So you're just looking at the trash? When are you gonna pick it up?"

The days of the week dissolve into "river time". There are no hours, only times of the day.Yet when we interface with the "bank world", the timing is always right. The river gods seem to be working with us, and paying attention to time becomes unnecessary.

The elements are working into our bodies and into our belongings. Everything we pick up leaves a sand shadow. Sand is everywhere. We sweep the boats clean, and the sand returns. It hides in every pocket and crevice and fold. Fabrics absorb the river humidity and the sun dries them quickly. Our bodies are brown from the unending bake of the sun. We swim to cool down, and the river mud enters our pores.

When we swim, we try not to think about all of the pipes we've seen entering our river, some seeming innocent and safe, but others smelling like the worst things of civilization with colors nature didn't create. We abstain from swimming below large cities... Sioux City, Omaha, St. Joseph. But the river calls us back and we tell ourselves we are a safe distance.

One of the future projects of River Relief is water quality monitoring. We'll be researching the information that is out there about Missouri River water safety to compile it for all of us. We'll be gathering other data that hasn't been done yet. And after this trip, after dissolving ourselves into this river, we really see the importance. This river is the lifeblood of the heartland, and who else will pay attention?

As we move down the river into Missouri, there is less work on river habitat, fewer scientists studying her changes. Fewer boats are running her current and fewer homes have a river view. No barges are running the river except those maintaining the channel for non-existant barges.

Choices are being made about this river, but it seems more unconscious here. Who is paying attention? The fishermen and women are, and we are. Who else? We want to know you, and we want to work with you to keep watch on her.

Contact us so we can contact you.
www.riverrelief.org; riverrelief@riverrelief.org; 573-443-0292.

Contemplations About the River’s Present and Future
Missouri River Relief Mega-Scout Crew
7-26-06
Mile 421 below Atchison

Being the idealist that I am, I envision a Missouri River that has long reaches where it is allowed to meander about its floodplain producing diverse habitats and abundant wildlife. Dispersed amongst these wild reaches are farms and towns that thrive not only on traditional economic pursuits, but also on a thriving tourist industry interested in the history, charm and beauty of the Missouri river valley. Navigation on the river is still important, but is more in balance with these other values.

The river in all of its glory, is in reality a heavily managed and harnessed system; a mere figment of its former self. Infamous for its widely meandering and shifting channel, management focused on navigation has reduced the mighty MO to a constricted, somewhat homogeneous tube of frustrated water. Consequently, habitat diversity has greatly suffered, and so too have the wildlife.

Ahh, but all is not lost; hope gleams on the horizon. The Army Corps of Engineers, through its Missouri River Mitigation Project, has implemented a variety of management practices that increase habitat diversity. Dikes have been notched and reconfigured to provide a diversity of depth and flow velocity. Triangular shaped chevrons are a new ingenuity that provide new habitat. Banks have been scooped out to provide some shallow water habitat. And side channel chutes are now being re-opened and restored. Even releases of water from the dams are being timed with wildlife in mind.

Coming down the river these last couple of weeks, it is obvious that the amount of this activity varies with location. In general, the upper most river in Nebraska and Iowa, appears to have much more mitigation land, numerous dike alterations, and a noticeable amount of chute restoration. As we approached Missouri and Kansas, the river has grown in size, the dikes have gotten longer and shallower, and mitigation lands fewer. My current opinion is that there is less alternative habitat restoration going on down here than there is upatream.

There has been a corresponding decrease in river use. Fewer river cabins line the bank, fewer Marina’s provide fuel and services; the luxury boats and jet ski’s so prevalent upstream are just not out here. While accesses are scattered down the river, there are fewer here as well.

Perhaps it has to do with the river getting larger and more erratic in its flows and floods.
Up north, the dam has more control of the flows and stage heights. River dwellings are not much higher than the river, maybe 12-15 feet. Down here these dwellings would be totally submerged during somewhat normal floods. As the size of the basin grows, and tributaries contribute an increasing amount of flow, the unpredictability of the mighty MO grows as well. Perhaps it also has to do with the combined effects of the several urban areas we have passed through. Water pollution and trash have certainly increased as we have past and left these concentrations of humans behind. Trash abounds below the towns and swimming becomes less and less attractive. River restoration and use is perhaps a more complicated issue down here.

The balance between navigational use and recreational use is swaying. The only 2 barges we have seen on the river were engaged in hauling rock and managing buoys. Despite the pre-trip rumors of ongoing commercial barge traffic on the upper reaches, no commercial traffic has been seen. Locals say there has been very little barge traffic for years. Recreational use, on the other hand, was astounding on the upper river. Expensive houses and boats, and extravagant developments are growing in number. River communities are developing river front parks and facilities, and supporting a growing tourism industry. While not as obvious down river, the potential is high.

As use of the river shifts to a more recreational focus, the need for river restoration activities becomes more justified. However, the other side of the coin is, floodplain development will ultimately limit the types and degree of river restoration alternatives available. If we are to allow the river to reclaim parts of its floodplain and increase the amount of habitat diversity, it will have to be done on long, wild reaches with minimum agricultural use. These areas are starting to come together with the purchase of mitigation lands. Many of them are, however, right next to the channel and do not include the entire local floodplain. This limits the options.

Complicated issues indeed. The Mega-scout has afforded us the opportunity to experience many of them more deeply than ever. We have time to observe and contemplate.

Thus, these musings arise…….

On heat waves, sandbars and millipedes – Melanie Cheney
River Mile 421, below Atchison
July 25^th, 2006

It was a full and sunny 90ish degree day. Hot! We stopped for as many swim breaks as we could squeeze in, which turned out to be about three, not enough! By the end of the day (5ish) we had to stop & swim as we were all becoming deliriously tired.

We set up camp on a gorgeous sand bar, continuing our nightly ritual. As the sun set, a bright and already huge white cumulus cloud grew before our very eyes, turning into a monstrous and brilliant pink anvil. We chattered the night away, and sang ourselves to sleep under the clouds, despite the 30% chance of rain. Well, the lightning caught Dan & I's attention at once, and we set up his supposedly 4-man tent in no time. Then we allowed the steady wind to lull us back to sleep, outside. It was just too hot to sleep in a tent. So when it started raining, we reluctantly crawled into the moist and sandy tent, calling to Anthony who was also sleeping nearby outside. The 3 of us couldn't help but giggle loudly at our impending situation. It was a rough night for all of us.

In the morning, we woke up to thousands of millipedes crawling all over the sandbar, in our tents, and on our persons! Like I said, it was a rough night for all. Tim will gladly give you his re-inactment of this stormy night.

July 20, 2006

We've gone over 100 miles now. That's the farthest I've ever traveled on any body of water. What is a body of water? I kind of think of the whole planet as the body and this river is a blood vein. River Relief people are the scrubby cells that keep the veins clean and unclogged. Wouldn't want Gaia to have a heart attach! Anthony Pettit

Glimpses of a day on the river
July 25, 2006

The shining river
My first glimpse each morning
Ever flowing
Like the blood through my veins
And the energy through our troop
Orange and pink skies
And the smells of fresh coffee
Draw us from our sandy repose

Many hands move boats
To Ship-Shape
Engines hum
Maps, binoculars, GPS and cameras
Are readied for the day

Glimpses of trash piles
Are mixed with snapshots
Of woods, wing dikes and wildlife

Great Blue Herons
Usher us down the river
And Bank Swallows
Clear our path of bugs

Strong Solar Rays
Bronze our skin
And cool swimming holes
Offer relief from the heat---Aaahhh

Between these gorgeous
Swimmin Holes
Refrigerators, barrels, gas tanks,
buckets, bottles and Styrofoam
Dot the Banks

We are insulted by their presence
But rest assured
Soon they will be removed

Late in the day
A sandbar
Becomes our nightly camp

Campfires, food and camaraderie
Spill laughs and giggles
Into the cool evening air
Drums, guitars and singing voices
Greet a sky
Shimmering with stars

I gaze at the multitudes
Of blinking lights
Then roll over and sigh
As once again
I watch
The river flow by

-Tim Nigh

One of the great pleasures of this mapping trip has been living with and exploring with such an interesting and talented crew of trash scientists. We are all on this trip because we love the Missouri River and want to know it more deeply. That is a bond that can’t be broken by simple campsite squabbles, and our bond has grown deeper as the river miles pass by.

Here’s a little bit about the folks on our crew:

First Week:

Charlotte Overby (Char): Charlotte has been an integral part of River Relief since our second clean-up. She’s a traveler, an excellent writer, an upright-bass player (or, apparently, any instrument she touches), a steady boat driver and a great cook. Although she moved to California with her partner Amy (also on our crew) last year, we still benefit from the creative energy she left behind for us to feed off. She now works with outdoor clothing company Patagonia, and arranged for all of us to get donations of free Patagonia gear. Charlotte is the voice of reason and compromise on our crew, and is always up for a good swim. Now she can add a new vocation to her diverse resume: she’s been filming us for a video that will be shown on the Patagonia website. Her fear of bugs meant she was the only one that put up a tent almost every night. Char also came up with the idea of spray-painting the river mile and date on every appliance we could get our hands on. Graffitti for science!

Amy Salaveter: Amy has been our resident naturalist. “What’s that bird, Amy”, “How many eggs do turtles lay?” “How can you tell a bighead carp from a buffalo”. She would answer questions like that almost nonstop every day, and we are all so much smarter now! A biologist by training, she was most recently employed with the US Fish and Wildlife Service working on saving desert tortoises in California. We are so lucky she and Char came back to the Midwest to join our crew, and our knowledge of this river ecosystem is much deeper now because of it. Check out her MegaScout Bird List elsewhere on this site. Over 100 birds of an amazing diversity!

Vicki Richmond: Vicki is the River Relief “West Coast” (Kansas City) Coordinator. She is magic with the press, and with Char and Tim has put together media contacts all along the river. She left her husband, two sons and dog “Pyrite” to join us for a week, and we are so glad they let her come. Vicki has been working for years to clean-up the Blue River in Kansas City, and her skills have really come in handy for River Relief’s mission. She is coordinating three clean-ups this year, in Omaha (our first in NE), Atchison, KS, and Sugar Creek, MO (near Kansas City). She really showed off her skills as an archivist and photographer this week.

Nancy McKenna: Nancy is a psychiatric nurse in Columbia, MO…a skill that this crew definitely benefited from! She’s been in love with the Missouri River since she moved near it 30 years ago. She’s the most likely to hop on an inner tube for a seven-mile float on the Big Muddy, with no idea how she’ll get back. She had to work back in Columbia on Friday and just started hitch-hiking right from the boat ramp. Two rides later, she decided she didn’t want to leave, and hitch-hiked back to the river. Thanks to Nancy’s shopping, half our diet was sweet little snacks, but the nurse in her made sure that we took swimming breaks to cool off when the weather was dangerously hot.

Both Weeks:

Tim Nigh (Science Guy): Tim is the visionary behind the MegaScout project. Tim works with the Missouri Department of Conservation, and has been with River Relief since the idea was first born. He has made a career of identifying and mapping the diversity of ecotypes and natural communities in Missouri. His understanding of the power of maps as educational tools is the inspiration behind the MegaScout. Tim is an excellent camp cook and bartender, and makes an incredible “Key Lime Carp” cooked in the campfire coals. He instantly finds his way into the hearts of the people we meet along the way. There is no better PR than this guy!

Dan Belshe: We would have nothing to show you if not for Dan, our “intern”. Dan created the maps and databases we are using to map trash. He’s been fine-tuning this blogsite and managing the massive amount of photos we are taking. With Tim Nigh and Kim Horton (of Mo-RAP), he created the color-coded lines that show the trash rating for each river mile. Every night, he sits around the driftwood campfire and fills his laptop (“Betty”) with the data we collected during the day, trying to make sense of our weird trash descriptions. Dan is a world traveler, having been to South and Central America, Europe and the Middle East, and his hilarious stories spill out as the night passes on.

Anthony Pettit (Buodreaux): Anthony can figure out anything. He’s been a steady boat driver, a student of GPS, a super hard-worker and is willing to do whatever needs to be done. He’s always the first one up in the morning, cleaning up the boats and making coffee, and often the last to crash around the campfire at night. If we need to find something on the boats, Anthony usually knows where it’s at, and he’s always making sure our batteries are charged. He’s actually arranged his job so that he can do any River Relief event we have and is always one of the happiest people around. He's also come up with a unique fishing style: do donuts with your boat behind a wing dike until the carp start jumping; direct your boat underneath jumping carp; bash carp on head with stick; serve as dinner.

Steve Schnarr: Steve began working on the MegaScout project several months before the trip. Along the way, the concept of the trip kept changing, and Steve tried to flow with the changes (or at least keep his head above water). When planning a river trip, it's best to think like a river, and leave all options open and flexible. He had the misfortune of doing "ground crew" in most of the big cities, where your time evaporates into a blackhole of wrong turns, checkout lines and bad directions. He can now be seen looking for any opportunity to get out on that crazy river and will often be caught expounding on the river as if he is some kind of expert or something.

Second Week:

Sienna: Sienna is another world traveler, but she’s pretty new to the Missouri River. She’s a Thai masseuse, a Yoga instructor and an environmental educator. The sight of Sienna doing a sun salutation with the rosy sunrise river behind her greets us each morning. She brought along her game of “Scruples”, and now we all know more about our ethical make-up than we ever wanted to know.

Melanie Cheney: Melanie has been doing every River Relief clean-up for a couple years now. This spring, she was one of the backbones of our River Fest benefit carnival down at Cooper’s Landing. She’s become a heckuva boat driver, negotiating the long wing dikes of the lower river perfectly. She’s all about swimming breaks whenever possible and her inquisitive nature and smiles keep us optimistic. She was a relentless journaler and many of her thoughts are elsewhere on this blog.

Dave Stous: Dave and his wife, Fran, joined us on our second week for their annual houseboat trip down the Big Muddy. His ideas on campspots and knowledge of the river were indispensible. Dave is a hydro-engineer, and has worked on several power plants and municipal water supplies along the Missouri River. As we neared Kansas City, he was able to share with us some in-depth knowledge of what we were seeing as we passed several inflows and plants. Typical radio transmission: "Saskia to Stousboat - what is that nasty orange stuff coming out of that pipe on river-right?" Reply: "Stousboat to Saskia - it looks like the stormwater retention drain from the powerplant, possibly coming off of their coal piles". Other times he pointed out that certain very strange looking outflows from water treatment plants were mostly heavy in calcium carbonate and silt, and were much less polluted than they appear.

Fran Stous: Fran was our "bottle messenger" for the second week. She took charge of unleashing our messages in bottles, recording and GPS-ing their launch points. Another psychiatric nurse, she has a highly developed spiritual but scientific outlook on life. Once she felt comfortable with us, she joined right in on our night-time swims and campfire conversations. She joined our mapping crew as we went through Kansas City (in a daylong rain) and performed perfectly.

Auxilliary Crew:
Many folks joined our crew for a day or two, helped us shuttle vehicles and crewmembers, or helped in our journey in some way. Here's some (not all) of them!

Racin' Dave Stevens: Dave is the River Relief mechanic. He joined us for our first couple of days on the river. He realized that we would be camping mostly on sandbars and should use our boats, not our van, to carry all of our gear. Thanks Dave! He and John Brady mounted our bimini shade cloths (which were crucial!) and ran through some basic motor repairs with the crew (all of which we needed).

Admiral John Brady: John is our Quartermaster. A long-time river rat, he generously shares his river stories and expertise with all of us. He shuttled folks for our one-week crew change and ran through the boat motors to make sure everything was working well. He has been an endless source of advice and help as some of us have been trained in boat operating. And he was the only one with the energy to force us all to clean out the boats on Friday afternoon, before our La Benite Park event.

Jim Karpowicz: Jim is the founder, idea-guy and fundraising lifeblood of Missouri River Relief and is currently serving as our Executive Director. Although no one will take direct responsiblity for it, but he may also have come up with the idea of the MegaScout. A documentary filmaker and producer, he joined our flotilla for several days, filming the action on and off the river. He also arranged for Tom Newcomb, of Missouri Outdoors to film us for a small piece he will be doing for the MDC show.

Michael Richmond: Michael was the brainchild behind our "message in a bottle" side project. He also shuttled the "Stousboat" trailer back to Kansas City, brought a supply of watermelon and corn for our bellies and bulldogged the "Boats and Brats" event at La Benite Park with his super-wife, Vicki. Michael offers his help at all times, and his thorough and thoughful nature always makes things smooth.

The Past Week MO River Relief Crew:
From left to Right: Tim, Charolette, Daniel, Vicki, Anthony, Steve, Amy, and Nancy
The new crew has been assembled. This week we have the only 6 of us. Anthony, Daniel, Tim, Steve, Mel, and Sienna.


Cooking at Indian Cave with all our new friends. The carp that jumped into the boat was extra tasty! Sienna and Anthony manning the rice, while Dave, Fran and Jon visit in the sun. The rest of the crew watches Tim whip up a zesty "keylime carp".







Early morning data entry with Dan, Mel, and lots of coffee.

First leg down... off to Kansas City.

A week on the river has taught us a lot!

People are truly interested in the resource. Whole comminities, small as they are, depend on the river. Fishing, boating, just soothing the soul are routine.

We are blessed by the good karma we've banked along the way. Folks have heard of us and our crazy trip. We achieve local celebrity... "aren't you those guys we saw on TV?" It is gratifying to know that we are noticed.

We must depend on ourselves and each other to make a project like this work. Who will help Anthony make the morning coffee now that I am gone? New crew will find new ways to make it work. I'd like to be a fly on the wall (not a biting fly, just an interested one) to see how roles come out.

All along the trip we've met folks who truly care about the river. Sunburned fisherfolk. Beautiful 20 something boat boys with fancy fast boats. Native people. Travelers like us. Scientists. Not a single disparaging comment. The river flows through us all.

Home is like a place I've visited. Hot showers, warm kitties, interested friends, neighbors helping to unpack and laughing at my sandy things. My family- who did, in fact, survive without me. It all feels a bit surreal.

I told my parents- dubious and concerned- that it would be the trip of a lifetime. I was oh so right!

From the river road.....
Vicki

Observations from the river by Vicki

I’m not much of a journal writer, but have found myself with a notebook full of incomplete sentences. Snapshots of a week that has rubber-band stretched and snapped into real time.

Boat Day one

We’re getting good at this! Each member of the crew has a niche. Comic relief, food prep, dishes, firebuilder, get the chairs, enter the data all come together daily in an organic way. No one wants for anything. Companionship, solitude- take your pick. The opportunity changes daily.

We board the boats and make our nests. Before two miles have passed we are in the rhythm that will take us through that day. We employ the “dog look”, snapping our heads back and forth. River miles are instinctive now. We know where we are in space.

We relax into the day and begin to notice things. A brick house- the first I’d seen. How did someone schlep those over the plains? Bright pockets of sun through the cottonwoods, just enough to warm the flowers that make riotous spots of color in the green.

Boat Day two

The animal people. Otters on the bank near a grain elevator. Bald eagles flying over the power plant. Signs of beaver everywhere.

Much has been written about the herons that we see. At first they were shy birds, flapping off at the first sign of our boats. In the urban areas, they are acclimated and merely look at us as we power by.

The flies. The vampire flies, says Anthony. So gentle, says Daniel. Biting, nasty, tenacious flies. Ground crew saw to our comfort by supplying swatters for both boats.

We can tell when we motor past public land. The cottonwoods drape the river. It is greener and cooler.

I don’t dare scan the other bank, I’d be lost. It is enough to know I’m immersed in “my” side.

Day three

We are fortunate to live in this time. Aren’t we lucky, says Nancy. The changes are happening right before our eyes. We meet folks every day that are having an impact on the river and charting the changes. You can damn the channel, but we couldn’t use our motors without it. We curse the wing dikes, but love the sandy beaches they create.

The reporter who had never been to the ramp and needed directions from a boat full of grimy river rats from hundreds of miles away.

The chevrons are new and have covered the trash that has accumulated. Have we not yet had the water to deposit the trash? Steve notices that there is driftwood piled along the rock. Perhaps the bottles and cans haven’t yet made it to this place.

A message in a bottle has been dropped daily, the brain child, and pseudo science of Michael. We caught up with that bottle down stream. The bottle got an earlier start than our boats did. It covered 10 miles in the four hours since we threw it in. It feels strange to be throwing trash into the river. I feel a bit self conscious doing it. It feels more like weird science now. A call to Michael to tell him. Science at work!!

Missouri River Relief Megascout
Bird Species List

Our mission out here is to survey and map the trash on the Missouri River, but we would be idiots if we didn't marvel at all the birds we see. In a way, they are the anedotes to the garbage. For every soggy couch, cast off water heater or rusty barrel we spot, along comes a belted kingfisher, bald eagle, or yellow warbler to remind us why we're really out here. We asked Amy to keep this list because she is an expert birder with years of professional experience working with wildlife and the government agencies charged with looking after them. But mostly we asked her to do it because she loves birds. And she helps the rest of us see them, learn about them, study them in field guides, and love them, too. SO this is a list of all the species we have identified from the Missouri River. And we think it's pretty darn amazing.

For example, by the third day we had seen five interior least terns. They are on the federal list of endangered species, and seeing them on the Missouri has given us hope. We have also seen pectoral sandpipers, who left the Arctic and stopped here--near Nebraska City--on their way to Argentina. Thousands of swallows, five different species of them, have swooped over the water right beside our boat. We have also seen or heard house wrens, Eastern kingbirds, and red-headed woodpeckers flitting along the banks, flying limb to limb in the cottonwoods and sycamores. Our favorite--and the one that has always been River Relief's totem and mascot--is the great blue heron. We have seen hundreds of them.

16-17 July 2006
(Days 1-2)

1. Whip-poor-will
2. Summer Tanager
3. Eastern Kingbird
4. Rough-winged Swallow
5. Warbling Vireo
6. Turkey Vulture
7. Brown-headed Cowbird
8. Yellow Warbler
9. Yellow-billed Cuckoo
10. Bank Swallow
11. Baltimore Oriole
12. Great Blue Heron
13. Red-winged Blackbird
14. Interior Least Tern (Endangered)
15. Barn Swallow
16. Great Egret
17. Belted Kingfisher
18. Rock Dove
19. American Robin
20. European Starling
21. Killdeer
22. Mallard
23. Common Grackle
24. Wood Duck
25. Cliff Swallow
26. Blue Jay
27. Wood Thrush
28. Eastern Screech Owl
29. Northern Cardinal
30. Eastern Wild Turkey

18-19 July 2006
(Days 3-4)

31. Eastern Wood-Pewee
32. House Wren
33. White-breasted Nuthatch
34. Northern Flicker
35. Downy Woodpecker
36. Gray Catbird
37. Tree Swallow
38. Common Yellowthroat
39. Yellow-breasted Chat
40. Black-capped Chickadee
41. Tufted Titmouse
42. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
43. Great-tailed Grackle
44. Mourning Dove
45. Canada Goose
46. House Sparrow
47. Eastern Meadowlark
48. Red-bellied Woodpecker
49. American Crow
50. Louisiana Waterthrush
51. Indigo Bunting
52. Great-crested Flycatcher
53. American Goldfinch
54. Eastern Towhee
55. Hooded Warbler
56. Green Heron
57. Chimney Swift
58. Purple Martin
59. Field Sparrow
60. Hairy Woodpecker
61. Northern Flicker
62. Red-headed Woodpecker
63. Eastern Bluebird
64. Ring-necked Pheasant
65. Dickcissel
66. Northern Bobwhite
67. Northern Shrike
68. Spotted Sandpiper

20-21 July 2006
(Days 5-6)

69. Common Cormorant
70. Muscovy Duck
71. Orchard Oriole
72. Northern Harrier
73. Broad-winged Hawk
74. Ruby-crowned Kinglet
75. Barred Owl
76. Chipping Sparrow
77. Ring-billed Gull
78. Red-tailed Hawk
79. Bald Eagle
80. Northern Parula
81. Red-eyed Vireo
82. Cattle Egret
83. Rose-breasted Grosbeak
84. Song Sparrow
85. Willow Flycatcher
86. Northern Mockingbird
87. American Coot
88. American Kestrel
89. Yellow-throated Vireo
90. Ruby-throated Vireo
91. Carolina Wren
92. Pied-billed Grebe
93. Pectoral Sandpiper
94. Gadwall

22-23 July 2006
(Days 7-8)

95. Great-horned Owl
96. Blue Grosbeak
97. Acadian Flycatcher
98. Eastern Phoebe
99. Cooper’s Hawk
100. Blue-winged Warbler
101. Pileated Woodpecker
102. Kentucky Warbler
103. Scarlet Tanager

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Five days out……and the people, places and trash are all starting to flow together.

The River Gods have certainly smiled down upon us. All whom we meet have either heard of us or are very interested in what we are doing. Short of one broken prop, the equipment has done us well. And the river…..she carries us and fills our smiling faces with bright sunshine as always.

We camp on beautiful sandbars with refreshing swimming holes ; the cottonwoods rise high behind us and sing the wind through their leaves; we take turns making wonderfully tasty dinners; and tell stories late into the night.

Most of us sleep out under the twinkling stars and rise with the cool morning sun. The hiss of the Coleman stove indicates that coffee is on ……one by one the crew arises, stuffs their bags, and starts the methodical migration back to the boats.

Most days start with a brief roundtable about the day to come. We pour over the maps and decide how far we will go. The ground crew makes lists of things the group needs, and gathers writings to pass onto the BLOG.

Media contacts for the day are discussed. Man, have we had good media exposure; 5 TV stations have come out to do stories and a couple of Newspapers. Most of the people we meet have heard of us. The attitudes of the locals indicate a connection to the river and an appreciation of what River Relief does. Does our souls good.

And the mapping of trash is becoming clockwork. We follow our route on fine maps with river miles, towns, roads, accesses and public lands laid deftly on top of air photos. The banks are scanned with naked eyes and binoculars. All concentrations of trash are located with GPS and all reaches are given a trashiness ranking. This all comes together in a database that allows us to show the patterns in trash abundance.

The sun beats down and our tans grow darker. Lovely swimming holes are frequented often to cool our bodies and freshen our minds. Our list of wildlife encountered is growing…..terns, eagles, otters, deer, turkey, and jumping carp amongst many species.

Yet the most interesting species are the humans that cross our path. Interested, red-nosed faces at a Rulo Catfish pub; friendly greetings from the Ponca State Park camp maintenance man; cute TV news girls and their graceful high heeled river rides; enthusiastic Donna at the Sioux City Chamber of Commerce; a family of Omaha Indians that enjoyed their first Missouri River boat ride; barge captains and Marina gas girls; crusty fishermen; and the numerous waving folks passing by in a variety of boats. All make us feel proud to be on the Mega-scout.

They do all flow together into a feeling of satisfaction; that we dared to undertake such an adventure; that it is going so well; and that there is another 600 miles to go……..

Hi all, My name is Daniel and I am the Mega Scout intern, this is my first time with Missouri River Relief and also my first time on the Missouri River! It has been an amazing adventure thus far and I am looking forward to meeting everyone.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006
We had a great day on the Big Muddy, mapping 40 miles from Decatur, NE to Blair (River Mile 691-651). The sun was warm and the water cool. Vicki launched a message in a bottle at 10am and found it around 2pm about 10 miles down the river. This stretch of the river was fairly clean however the nice bluffs and cottonwood trees slowly faded into corn fields planted all the way to the edge of the river. We stopped and swam on some really good beaches throughout the day.

We have our surveying system worked out and we are meeting lots of new people along the way. We pasted our 100th mile yesterday as well. All the data we have collected is being entered into our computer database and is looking great. The picture below shows just a sample of the work we are doing.

Every river mile on both the left and right side of the river have been rated for trash on a 0-5 scale. Zero being no or little trash, and five being large dumps. So far we have found only small scattered trash. Every point (trash, ramp, point of interest) we marked along the river is linked with a photo caption and description for easy access.

Around the 672 mile marker we met up with Captin Hal of the "Slim Funk". Hal and his team are from the USGS River Studies in Columbia, MO. They are working on velocity measurements of wing dikes and fish studies. Hal, Rob, Chad, and Sarah joined the River Relief on a sandbar for dinner and revelry. They are a great bunch, after smores and foshi launching we headed to bed under a beautiful blanket of stars.

A first boat ride through the Blackbird Hills
July 17, 2006
River Mile 691 - Decatur, NE

It was only our second night on the river, but we were already becoming sandbar snobs. It had been a beautiful day on the river, boating through the Winnebago and Omaha Reservations, and the thought of camping next to the Decatur toll bridge was not extremely appealing. But exhaustion won out, and before we knew it, we were taking a dip in the river while Char and Amy whipped up burritos to feed an army.

As the sun moved lower in the sky, a family walked down the boat ramp to hang out by the river. We hailed them over to visit, and pretty soon, the Hallowell family had made themselves at home in our camp. We suited the kids, Janet, Aileta “Sissy” and Whitehawk, up in lifejackets, showed them how they could safely swim in the eddies, and they disappeared, laughing, into the gentle current.

The elder Hallowells, Cornelius (“Corny”) and Benal, had both grown up on the Omaha Reservation, spitting distance from the Big Muddy. As with so many river valley locals, who have seen all of the faces of this schizophrenic river, they had a deep fear of its currents. Benal has had several close relatives drown in the river.

We all chipped in with our collective knowledge of how the river works: how at lower levels the currents are manageable and often tame; how the trickiest currents are at the ends of wing dikes and around structures; how the river demands respect and attention at all times, but that when it rises is when it is most unpredictable.

At first it seemed impossible, but in a matter of minutes, we convinced the whole family to hop on our boat for a ride through their homeland. Whitehawk decided to keep swimming, but Sissy and Janet took up spots on the bow and Corny and Benal took deep breaths and hopped in amidships. None had been on the river before in a boat.

As Anthony guided the “Char” (our name for our 60 hp jon boat – named for our beloved burrito chef) upstream, the Hallowells got to see their homeland from a completely new perspective. Corny pointed out the Blackbird Hill, a loess bluff that rose above us as we rounded the bend above Decatur. Stories of who lived where and old stories of grandmothers and fishing spilled out. Benal had been worried about getting on the river, but as the hills rolled by, she became truly strong, and everyone glowed with smiles.

We all filled up on burritos, and relaxed around the campfire. The Hallowells brought down some fine hardwood logs for the fire, to add to our smoky driftwood pile. Pretty soon, the three children were gathered around the glow of Dan’s laptop (which he finally named – “Betty”) while he showed them what he could do with our mapping software….including zooming in on their house up in the hills above.

Everyone flew foshees that night, and several new foshee addicts were born. The Hallowells left with hugs, and we knew we had made new friends that night.

Sunday, July 16, 2006
Ponca State Park to Weedland River Access

The sun rose in a cloudless sky, with a raucous chorus of yellow warblers and warbling vireos. Eastern kingbirds fluttered between perches and the turkey vultures began swirling above the loess bluffs.

Racin’ Dave Stevens, our priceless mechanic and camp visionary, set to work early organizing our 24-foot plate boat. I must admit, I was a little doubtful when he set our table up in the middle of the boat, with our gear packed beneath.

But it soon became obvious…the bathroom is less private, the bunks are kinda hard, but now we had our houseboat. Or at least a floating kitchen/mapping station. Our new home for two weeks!

This is not the Missouri River we know from down there in Missouri. In mid-Missouri, in what we call the Moniteau Bluffs Reach, the river is thick & brown, strangled by a strict, swift channel and wide, wide, wide.

During this first day, we saw many faces of the Missouri that we hadn’t met before. The first was the wild face. Shallow and sprawling. Sandbars lurking everywhere, just under the surface. And no trash. The occasional bottle. That was it. We took a reporter from Sioux City’s Channel 4 (Sarah) out from the Ponca ramp, but could find next to no trash to show her.
We loved it!

The next face of our beloved river was unrecognizable to us. In Missouri, people are still rediscovering the recreational value of the Big Muddy. Most of the folks down on our river are fisher folk. You can have a whole bend of the river to yourself for hours.

Not so near Sioux City. As we neared the city, the river narrowed and the speedboats came out in force. Nearly every sandbar was occupied. “Austentacious” trophy homes lined the banks. This is a town that knows its river well and loves it.

But, like all cities, the trash increased as well. We found a couple of dumpsites, and some trashy spots where people obviously party. One group of folks we talked to complained that they had cleaned one of their favorite spots three times, but the “kids” keep trashing it. Boy do we know that feeling! And several folks recognized us as the “surveying people???”

We’d never seen the likes of the Mlr-Tym Marina, with its long rows of covered boat slips. And the purty doc girls……

The Sergeant Floyd Museum, housed inside an old Corps of Engineers steamboat, was fascinating. A concentrated wealth of river artifacts and local river history.

And we met Mike Berger, who had his own crusade of cleaning up the small stream that spills through a pipe into the river just below the 20/77 bridge. With his friends, he had done cleanups there and monitored non-effluent pollution. They fought the city powers that be, and the Iowa DNR. As with so many crusades by individuals around the country, the demands of life itself took over. There was less time to do the hard thankless jobs of stream keeping.

It takes a community of supporting active people to keep an eye on our environment to protect our waters. This network of interested, engaged river lovers are what we are after. This is a big part of our mega scout project. So, while we are searching for trash spots, we are also searching for like-minded river rats. Folks who want to swim in clean and safe rivers, who want to work together to take care of our beloved Big Muddy.

If you are one of those people, please contact us. We all need to work together. The river strings together disparate communities. It's the connective tissue between folks that do not know each other, but share a common passion.

Email Us: riverrelief@riverrelief.org or call 573-443-0292

Missouri River Relief Megascout
Bird Species List

1. Whip-poor-will
2. Summer Tanager
3. Eastern Kingbird
4. Rough-winged Swallow
5. Warbling Vireo
6. Turkey Vulture
7. Brown-headed Cowbird
8. Yellow Warbler
9. Yellow-billed Cuckoo
10. Bank Swallow
11. Baltimore Oriole
12. Great Blue Heron
13. Red-winged Blackbird
14. Interior Least Tern (Endangered)
15. Barn Swallow16. Great Egret
17. Belted Kingfisher
18. Rock Dove
19. American Robin
20. European Starling
21. Killdeer
22. Mallard
23. Common Grackle
24. Wood Duck
25. Cliff Swallow
26. Blue Jay
27. Wood Thrush
28. Eastern Screech Owl
29. Northern Cardinal
30. Eastern Wild Turkey
31. Eastern Wood-Pewee
32. House Wren
33. White-breasted Nuthatch
34. Northern Flicker
35. Downy Woodpecker
36. Gray Catbird
37. Tree Swallow
38. Common Yellowthroat
39. Yellow-breasted Chat
40. Black-capped Chickadee
41. Tufted Titmouse42. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
43. Great-tailed Grackle
44. Mourning Dove
45. Canada Goose
46. House Sparrow
47. Eastern Meadowlark
48. Red-bellied Woodpecker
49. American Crow
50. Louisiana Waterthrush
51. Indigo Bunting
52. Great-crested Flycatcher
53. American Goldfinch
54. Eastern Towhee
55. Hooded Warbler
56. Green Heron
57. Chimney Swift
58. Purple Martin
59. Field Sparrow
60. Hairy Woodpecker
61. Northern Flicker
62. Red-headed Woodpecker
63. Eastern Bluebird
64. Ring-necked Pheasant
65. Dickcissel
66. Northern Bobwhite
67. Northern Shrike
68. Spotted Sandpiper
69. Common Cormorant
70. Muscovy Duck
71. Orchard Oriole
72. Northern Harrier
73. Broad-winged Hawk
74. Ruby-crowned Kinglet
75. Barred Owl
76. Chipping Sparrow
77. Ring-billed Gull
78. Red-tailed Hawk
79. Bald Eagle
80. Northern Parula
81. Red-eyed Vireo
82. Cattle Egret
83. Rose-breasted Grosbeak
84. Song Sparrow
85. Willow Flycatcher
86. Northern Mockingbird
87. American Coot

Saturday, July 15, 2006
Road Trip - Columbia, MO., to Ponca State Park, NE.

A perfect morning. The first in a string of perfect mornings. We met at Jim Karpowicz’s house, where our River Relief fleet of vehicles and boats live. Did a quick run through of our gear and then jumped in the pond. The first in a string of perfect swims.

And then we hit the road.

Picked up Vicki Richmond in Kansas City, and then onto I-29 North. Lunch was in Rulo (local color and catfish), NE, followed by a gorgeous drive through the loess bluff country.

This was a road trip with a mission. No dallying at the Religious Artifact Museum in Onawa, IA. (with the Wall of Popes). No checking out the Ice Cream Museum.

Then on to Ponca State Park.

Upon getting there…we were immediately relieved. A winding drive through burr oaks and walnuts brought us down to the river. Our beloved Big Muddy, but less big and less muddy. We got a campspot right on the river at the mouth of a sandy side channel at the end of the unchannellized Missouri River.

Our first camp was embellished by Sue’s (Racin Dave’s Girl Friend) ready made pork, taters and green beans dinner----mmmmmm that gravy was stupendous….. Cocktails, stories and songs drifted off to cottonwood winds and snores….

Megascout Route

Megascout Schedule (approximate)

Sun. July 16 -- Ponca State Park, IA (River Mile 754)/ Sioux City, IA (River Mile 732)

Thurs. July 20 -- Omaha, NE / Council Bluffs, IA (River Mile 620 )

Sat. July 22 -- Indian Cave State Park, NE (River Mile 518)

Mon. July 24 -- St. Joseph, MO (River Mile 452)

Tues. July 25 -- Atchison, KS (River Mile 423)

Friday, July 28 -- Kansas City, MO (River Mile 365)

Autumn, 2006 -- Kansas City – St. Louis, MO

Details

By boat, the Megascout crew will scout riverbanks for trash deposits and old dumpsites. This information will be entered into an ARC-GIS (Geographic Information System) map of the Missouri River valley. The map also incorporates data compiled from a number of federal and state agencies related to landform info, dike locations, river accesses, public lands and more. The map derived from this search will be publicly available for river communities interested in restoring the Missouri River.

Our ground crew will visit every community along the way. We'll scout for campsites, fresh corn and ripe tomatoes, and explore each river town.

The first week takes the crew through eastern Nebraska and western Iowa down to Missouri’s northern border. The second week continues downriver past St. Joseph, MO, and Atchison, KS, concluding with a “Boats and Brats” event at La Benite Park in Kansas City.

Please note: The trash scouts will randomly estimate the concentration of trash deposited by past floods. No individual landowner will be singled out when we report our data. From our experience, river trash originates upstream from its final site, or it has been dumped in historically easy-to-access spots.

Our Mission

Sure, trash is always flowing down the Missouri River, but when communities gets together for clean-ups, trash dumps disappear. In our five years of stewardship, Missouri River Relief crews have observed a tremendous improvement along the banks of the Big Muddy.

copyright Dory Colbert / 2006


Visit Our Website: http://www.riverrelief.org/index.html

Volunteer Sign-Up: http://www.riverrelief.org/cleanupsignup.html

Contact Us: Missouri River Relief, P.O. Box 463, Columbia, MO 65205
Phone: (573) 443-0292 * Office hours: 12-2pm (M-W), 2-4pm (Th)
riverrelief@riverrelief.org

Remember to check back often for more details of the Mega Scout, including photos and journal entries!