Canoeing and camping in the city?
nature in our own backyard
Courtesy DigNatureThe other day I was invited to take a canoe trip down the Mississippi River, where I saw all kinds of wildlife, including a prehistoric-looking heron, and lots of other birds. I also saw really cool bridges from the underside, and got an up-close look at a gigantic river barge.
The best part about it? I didn't even need to leave the city, I just rode my bike to a park in St.Paul and a few minutes later I was out on the water.
This trip was part of a new program that Wilderness Inquiry and the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area are sponsoring to get city folks like me (and you?) out on the river. It's called the Urban Wilderness Canoe Area or UWCA, and the group organizing these trips hope to take 10,000 middle and high-school students on river trips. Some will even include overnight camping in St.Paul.
Besides being a really fun trip, I was able to see (and put my hands into) the place where my drinking water comes from, and where the run-off from my city street goes to.
While the water did look and smell better than I would have imagined, I did see all kinds of disgusting trash, some of which had made its way into the branches of nearby trees and bushes. I saw fast food containers, plastic toys, grocery bags and lots of cigarette butts. It's easy to forget that this stuff all ends up somewhere, and often times in waterways like the Mississippi, which eventually end up in our oceans. Even my short river trip was a great reminder of this.
Have any Buzz readers been canoeing or hiking along the Mississippi, or camping near the city? What did you see?
Tags : Visitors to the Science Museum of Minnesota's Mississippi River Gallery have the opportunity to pilot a simulated towboat pushing barges down the Mississippi River. They quickly find out the process is a lot harder than it looks. And today an actual riverboat pilot found out the same thing while cruising on the Mississippi near Dubuque, Iowa.
Mussel control: A swarm of zebra mussels have attached themselves to this larger regular mussel. The invasive species has been spreading across the U.S. and have now shown up in three Ramsey County lakes, part of many east-metro area drinking water supplies. But their pressence doesn't impact the drinkability of the water. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)I would have expected this from television news, but this was actually a breaking news story on the Star Tribune website today: zebra mussels have been found in three local lakes that provide water to municipal drinking water systems to east metro cities. A little further into the piece, it does remind us that zebra mussels do not affect the quality of drinking water. The only significant public health issue, I guess, is that the mussels can congregate around and clog up intake pipes for the water systems.
Here’s some other breaking news, from me, about our water supplies: geese poop in them, huge carp (and assorted other fish) die in them, and lots of other natural but nasty things occur there as well. That’s why we have water treatment plants and add chemicals that help purify our water.
What’s distressing is that the spread of zebra mussels is now jumping from the Mississippi River into other local bodies of water where they have no natural predators to control their numbers. And the article barely addresses that issue.
Investigators are going to recover the pieces of the collapsed I-35W bridge and reassemble major sections (just like they do with crashed airplanes) to try to find a cause for the disaster. Seeing all the pieces in the proper order can help investigators figure out what went wrong and which bits failed first. The process could take a year or even longer.
Later this afternoon, the US Army Corps of Engineers is going to lower the water level of the river by two feet in the area of the bridge collapse.
After the initial investigation is done, the Corps will open the roller gates at the Ford dam (i.e. Lock&Dam #1), dropping the level of the pool and giving emergency workers and investigators better access to the wreckage.
The silver lining of our recent drought is that the Mississippi is flowing at only 15% of normal. That means the river is shallower than it would otherwise be, and the debris in the channel isn't creating a massive dam.
The deadly cycle: Farming > River > Dead Zone > SHARKS!Did you know that the food we grow up here in the Midwest might cause shark attacks down in the Gulf of Mexico? Okay, I might be getting a little sensational but here is my train of thought.
- We do a ton of farming up here in the central states. This requires lots of fertilizer which in many cases eventually runs into the Mississippi River.
- The nutrients in this fertilizer flow down to the Gulf of Mexico where they cause a huge area of low oxygen in the water causing fish who can't swim long distances to die.
- Other fish that can migrate, like sharks, get the heck outta dodge and end up swimming around in larger numbers in beach areas where people swim.
It gets worse. Just today, the BBC is reporting that scientists think that this year's dead zone could grow to 8,500 sq miles, the biggest ever!
I wonder what the "tipping point" is for this issue? I'm not seriously too worried about the shark attacks. But the environmental impacts of the dead zone are huge. How bad will this have to get before people start talking about the issue of fertilizer run-off around the water cooler? Then again, maybe we can get some positive public action during the upcoming shark week, but I am guessing agricultural practices won't exactly be their focus...alas.
Related link
Dead Zone - Great resource on the science behind the Dead Zone from none other than...us, the Science Museum of Minnesota.
A manatee: Photo courtesy US Geologic Survey
Rescuers from the US Fish and Wildlife Service are trying to capture a manatee that has strayed far from home. These large, gentle creatures normally live in the Gulf of Mexico. But one half-ton hombre swan 700 miles up the Mississippi River and is now inhabiting the harbor at Memphis, Tennessee!
Scientists are concerned for the animal's health. Nearly hairless, manatees need water 68 degrees or warmer. The river is a little bit chillier than that, and biologists worry that the creature’s digestive system could shut down. They are trying to corral it and move it to Sea World Florida, where it can receive medical attention.
The Minnesota and Mississippi valleys are much wider than the rivers they hold. That’s because 10,000 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age, a massive lake drained through here, cutting a deep valley. As the water emptied the rivers shrank, but the wide valleys remain.
Please contact us if you have questions about the rights on this image.
The bluffs along the Mississippi contain St. Peter sandstone. Laid down by a tropical ocean some 470 million years ago, this formation extends as far as Illinois, Missouri and Nebraska.
Please contact us if you have questions about the rights on this image.
Engineer James B. Eads, known for his bridge over the Mississippi at St. Louis, was born on May 23, 1820. The bridge wasn't his only claim to fame, though. He also invented a boat and diving bell that allowed him to run a salvage operation and made him a fortune. He also built ironclad warships for use during the Civil War, and a year-round navigation channel for New Orleans.
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