May 1995
BIG RlvER
CURRENT EVENTS handicapped accessible. The funds will go instead to nearby Perrot State Park, site of an historic trading post and a group of mounds closer to the river.
tive fish such as paddlefish, bigmouth buffalo and gizzard shad. The bighead was imported to Arkansas by a private fish farmer in the 1970s and escaped. In 1994 a commercial fisherman near Alton, Ill., came up with 500 pounds of the fish in a single net.
Speedier Permits
Fewer Barges, Rising Rates
By Pamela Eyden
(Not So) Clean Water Act
C
onservative Republicans will send a revised Clean Water Act to the House floor for a vote in May or June. Representatives of both parties agree that the 23-year-old Clean Water Act has been one of the country's most successful environmental laws, restoring half of the nation's waterways to fishable, swimmable and drinkable quality. They also agreed that the law needs reforms, although they disagree about how to do it. The proposal would cut in half the 105 million acres of wetlands that now get federal protection and set more lenient standards for many kinds of water pollution. The bill would also allow cities to dump lightly treated sewage at
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The proposal would cut in half the 105 million acres of wetlands that now get federal protection and set more lenient standards for many kinds of water pollution.
T
he Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service announced changes in permit procedures for small projects with a minor impact on public waters and wetlands. The initiatives are meant to speed and streamline the process. One would establish a nationwide general permit for activities related to the construction or expansion of a single family home that affect less than one-half acre of wetland.
Bighead in the Big River
T
he Long Term Resource Monitoring Program has found evidence of an increasing number of bighead carp in the Mississippi River. The bighead carp is an exotic species of minnow that feeds on plankton and thus competes with na-
N
ative American platform mounds at the top of a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River in Trempealeau, Wis., will not be restored after all, because the village board voted against accepting a $124,590 grant from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (see "Earthen Pyramids Mark Ancient Outpost" in the May 1994 Big River). The project sparked controversy when village residents couldn't determine how much the project would cost to build and maintain, and whether the pathways to the top of the bluff would have to be
M
ore importers of slab steel to the Midwest will choose to move their cargo via the St. Lawrence Seaway instead of the Mississippi River this year, even though it's a more expensive way to go. The shift is partly due to scheduled lock repair on the Illinois River that will shut down barge traffic from July 11 through September 9. It's also because of increased competition with grain haulers for limited barge space. The number of barges available has decreased slightly, from 21,232 in 1993 to 21,156 in 1994, while the amount of corn and soybeans they haul reached record levels last year. Labor and environmental costs make it cheaper to import than to manufacture the steel slabs, which are cut into pieces to produce consumer products. Steel imports increased from 7.1 million tons in (Current Events continued on page 6)
sea, allow certain businesses to dump contaminants in water without a permit, and allow business to trade pollution credits between water and air, or between one factory and another.
Mounds Grant Rejected
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We'd Like .to Buy You a Cup of Coffee We'd like to meet more of our readers face-to-face, so how .aboutjoinlng us for a cup of coffee?
to
We need get outofthe office more, so we're going to drop in .on river town coffee shops from time to time. This month we're ~heading for La Crosse. We'll grab a~.ood table at The Brew Note (327 Jay St., downtown) on tv1<41Y 17, at abo.ut 5:30 p.m. We'll stick around to 6:30 or so. Stop by us wnafyou're up to, howwe're.doing, .what you'd like to see in Big River or just to talk about fish or birds. The . coffee's on us. lf youcan't>makeittota Crosse, don't desp(;llr, weplanto eventually visit all the river towns in the Big River circulation area ..
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