Mississippi River's Pool 2 is a waterway in peril By Bob Shaw bshaw@pioneerpress.com Posted: 07/28/2012 12:01:00 AM CDT Updated: 07/29/2012 12:43:05 PM CDT When Kevin Chapdelaine boats on the Mississippi near his Newport home, he sees a river of trouble. He can't even use most of it. It's too shallow, with sediment filling his favorite fishing spots. He waves to passing boat pilots, who thread their barges through channels choked by silt. He fishes in waters packed with walleye and bass -- which soon could be wiped out by an invasion of Asian carp. "Pool 2 needs a friend," shouted Chapdelaine over the roar of his engine, during a recent outing on the river. Pool 2 -- the 33-mile stretch of the river between the Ford Dam in St. Paul and Hastings -- has been neglected for decades. Despite dozens of environmental projects completed elsewhere on the Mississippi, there has never been a single one in Pool 2. But it's finally getting some attention. Last spring, Chapdelaine founded Friends of Pool 2, which promotes wildlife and recreational use. Members of 67 river-advocacy groups heard a call to action in June, when the group Mississippi Makeover sponsored a meeting and cruise aboard a two-story riverboat. The groups want to slash sediment, fight the carp, build islands and lure boaters to a pretty but controversial part of the river. "If the river here could be repaired," said Mississippi Makeover coordinator Laura Jester, "perhaps we wouldn't have to drive five hours to the BWCA."
TRUCKLOADS OF SILT The Mississippi is getting larger. In the past 20 years, the annual flow of the river has increased 24 percent, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. That's largely because water flow of the Minnesota River, which joins the Mississippi at St. Paul, has increased a whopping 70 percent. Why? Experts say farmers in the Minnesota basin increasingly tile their fields to improve drainage. While this prevents soil erosion in the fields, it boosts the surge of water to the Minnesota -- eroding its banks and sending that soil downstream. Also to blame is an increasing amount of hardscape, such as streets and rooftops, that send more water into the river instead of being absorbed in the ground. With the water comes silt. If the Mississippi were a trucking company, it would be delivering one semitrailer load of dirt to Pool 2 every 12 minutes, year after year. That sedimentation rate is about 10 times higher than it was in the Mississippi's natural state about 200 years ago. The estimated 1 million tons of crud per year rushes through the narrow channels in St. Paul, but settles into the southern part of Pool 2 and Lake Pepin. It has left vast parts of Pool 2 only inches deep and unsuitable for any use. "Big areas have become aquatic deserts," said John Anfinson, chief of resource management for the U.S. Park Service's Mississippi National River and Recreation Area. An egret fishes in an area that was once deep enough for boat travel in Pool 2. (Pioneer Press: Ben Garvin) Chapdelaine feels like the silt is taking the river away one section at a time. He has lived on the river for 40 years and has seen the changing flow and sediment distort the river's natural shape. He has watched whole islands disappear, as others grow, bend or swell like the slow-moving shapes in a lava lamp. Near the Wakota Bridge carrying Interstate 494, he passed a line of 8-foot posts sticking out of the shoreline. They used to be in the river.
"Right there, that used to be 12 feet deep," he said, pointing to the area. He said it was used as a staging area for as many as 200 barges. And about half a mile from that was a fishing spot he recalled from his youth. Silt has destroyed that, too, by filling it with sludge. A few years ago, this island didn't exist, Kevin Chapdelaine says. Sediment has piled up and given rise to new islands and other unwanted land masses in the area called Pool 2. (Pioneer Press: Ben Garvin) BAD FOR BARGES Sediment also is choking barge traffic. The channel south of Cottage Grove is one of the most dangerous in the entire Mississippi, a 90-degree bend in a channel that narrows to 200 feet. For a 15-barge tow, that's a hairpin turn. Some pilots don't even try to make it. Many arrays of barges must be broken up so towboats can push them through in smaller batches. Out-of-control barges often swing wide and knock out buoys, according to corps navigation specialist Paul Machjewski. Friends of Pool 2 member Greg Genz, who is a consultant and broker for marine equipment, said the towboats, whose huge propellers often are powered by 5,600-horsepower motors, pound the beaches with waves -- increasing erosion, boosting sediment and damaging wildlife. In June, WaterShed Partners and Mississippi Makeover Project conducted a boat tour along Spring Lake and lower Pool 2, just upstream from Hastings. The purpose was to explore and highlight issues in this important stretch of the river, including water quality, habitat restoration, recreational opportunities and the effects of Asian carp. (Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri)
The silt collects in the channels the same way dust piles up in the corners of a basement. To maintain a 9-foot depth, the corps has been forced to dredge once a year for the past three years, according to Machjewski. The dredging used to be done every three to five years. From his boat, Chapdelaine sees sediment silently wrecking other businesses. He headed south from his home in Newport, entering an inlet on the west side of the river that serves Castaways Marina and three others. He slowed down, reading the ominous depth gauge: "12 feet... 6... 4.5..." He stopped at 2.5 feet. Most boats couldn't pass. Sediment had nearly sealed off one end of the inlet. "This is not supposed to be a dead-end channel, but it's becoming that," he said. WHO PAYS? Pool 2 has been easy to ignore. Since 1986, the corps' environmental management program has completed 26 projects in the district from St. Paul to Guttenberg, Iowa. Habitats have been restored, wildlife promoted. In Pool 2 -- nothing. "Pool 2 is a tough one," said Tom Novak, project manager of the corps' Upper Mississippi restoration program. "We just felt there is not much we could do here." That's because the federal government pays only for projects on federal land. Pool 2 doesn't have federal land, so environmental projects require a local partner to pay about 35 percent of the cost. States share costs on most sections of the Mississippi, but pools 1 and 2 are entirely in Minnesota. And for states or cities clobbered by the economic downturn, paying millions for river improvements is politically unthinkable. Pool 2 has especially suffered because no islands have been built. Islands make river water clearer by reducing the effect of wind, which whips up waves that crash into fragile shoreline. For wildlife, they are habitat. For people, islands provide beaches, woods, fishing and beautiful coves. The corps has built dozens of islands, and there is a new proposal to build 10 more on the Mississippi River near Red Wing. But none have been built in Pool 2. That's an oversight, said Mississippi Makeover's Jester. She said island-building is the No. 1 priority of the group. The 50,000 cubic yards of material dredged from the Pool 2 barge channels each year could be used to build islands, she said, instead of being dumped on Grey Cloud Island. One reason for caution, said the corps' Machjewski, is that islands slow the flow of the river, which causes backups and increased flooding. But Pool 2 advocates say the flow can be increased in other ways to compensate. "Island-building needs to happen if this part of the river is going to be healthy again," Chapdelaine said.
NO SQUEAKY WHEEL Ironically, one reason that Pool 2 is ignored is that it's protected. Since 1988, it has been part of the 72-mile Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, a national park that stretches from Dayton, Minn., to just south of Hastings. Building of roads, homes and businesses is strictly limited. That means few people use it. "Above Hastings, it's like a graveyard," Chapdelaine said. It also means few people care about it. The river could become a swamp, and no chorus of voices would lobby for help. In contrast, the Lake Pepin part of the Mississippi has no such protection. It is lined with scenic highways, marinas and homes and is alive with power boats, canoes and sailboats. Which means thousands of people use it -- and protest if they think it's being damaged. The millionaires complain, said Friends of Pool 2 member Genz, when rising silt means they can't get their boats in the water. "They become the squeaky wheel," he said. Although there are more than 60 groups that claim to be protecting the Mississippi, none has focused on Pool 2 -- until Friends of Pool 2 was formed. Chapdelaine's focus isn't fish, it's people. He believes if more people use Pool 2, it will lead to greater political pressure to preserve it. "There has never been a voice for the recreational user," said Chapdelaine, "until our group." "We should be attracting kayakers, hunters, anglers," said Jester. To do that, they will have to overcome the river's reputation. Although the water is cleaner than it has been in decades, the silt makes it look dirty. In some places, businesses, such as menacing-looking refineries, appear on the shores. And some boaters worry about the barges. That's why Chapdelaine had the river all to himself on a recent afternoon. Not another boat was in sight. He turned off the motor and drifted. The eagles, the bluffs, the ripples from river fish and the smell of the pines all made the river feel like a lake in Canada. Then he looked at his idled propeller, his barometer of water clarity. "I can see my prop," he said. "It's a good day."