They keynote is beginning. Reggie McLeod is the editor of Big River magazine. His talk is on the many attempts at engineering the river. Big River is the only independent river magazine in the world. Nutrients in the river from agriculture. Causes the state of the dead zone. They compare the dead zone to size of states. The area we are at now used to be a braided river. Lock and dams changed river to a series of lakes. Fish that evolved are now facing a new river. Even though we are the widest point at Lake Clinton it is getting shallower.
Two biggest problems for river: it's disappearing and nutrients. Brown maps of River. What do you manage the river for? Who eill manage it? Why is tough to sell river campaigns? Physical constraints and geometry, administrative constraints, conceptual constraints.
Looking at the river with a circle. Rivers are edgy. Minnesota river is the largest source of pollution in the Minneosta River region. Why? Tiling on farms. It causes flushes during rain. In MN just about every river edge is a border.
A great conversation on nitrogen and phosphorus. Lake Pepin
Time and problems flow like a river. Problems are upstream and the solution is downstream. Hence title selling the river upstream.
Now on what can we do.
Easy solutions: stay local, fatten up, use boundaries. Shout out to River Action. Friends of Pool 2.
Drift less area of river. Difficult solitons: watersheds, mentally connect. Make watershed political entity.
Now is a conversation on Clintom Corn strike. A series of interviews, 15-16 total, were conducted on strike participants. The presentation is on these interviews. The presentation is a video featuring the interviews and strike as a mini documentary.
Strike before and after. Clinton was a manufacturer. Could raise your family and family could stay and get jobs. A blue collar town. Clinton Corn and DuPont and Chicago Northwestern. Short strikes but after strike decades of hard feeling. 1978/1979. Strike caused people and friends to take sides. 37 years later and still want to spit on people. Everyone talked about how Clinton has not recovered from the strike.
Interviews brought out many issues: family & community tension. One of the issues was not everyone understood why people struck and why some went back. Clinton Corn was a family as like GM plants and all factory towns, family hired family. Retribution, revenge, and small mindedness is still rampant on both sides.
Last video is on work at
Clinton Corn.
Sorry for the delay. I was talking and then lunch! I was on a panel who talked about Mr. Sabin. Bill Sherman's argument is that Sabin was the most important person in rural education history. Great laughs were had on a few topics. The lack of quality restrooms was one. 20% of schools had no bathrooms or heavily soiled bathrooms that warranted them unusable. Sabin also was large in the movement to make curriculum, teaching certification, school planning, and more. Sabin also relied on the legislature.
We are now having a presentation on BlackHawk Watch Tower. The history of this park in the Quad Cities is very interesting. Should say the Tri-Cities.
The project history is best shown through a presentation or article. Lots of moving parts. It's pretty awesome to hear the amount of research the student did so I await the publication! Also amazing to see the debate over Blackhawk: the park, the man, the representation of Native Americans, legacy, and what is a piece of land: history or ecology.
The flood of 65 presentation was extra touching because it featured many people who are no longer with us. It allowed for a great look at how community responded to the disaster of their lifetime.
We end with River to River. I was lucky enough to have a shake in Walcott with both owners. He yelled at me to get the malt as it was easier for me to walk over.
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