Guest post from James Brozek

Here's an open letter from James Brozek, one of our MRPA members. (I edited it for punctuation, clarity, and spelling.) It was sent to many public officials and others. He sent the photos, also.

Dear friends,

Last year the Milwaukee Riverkeeper organization stated they believe that removal of the Estabrook Dam would have the greatest positive impacts on water quality, sediment management, fish and aquatic life, terrestrial wildlife, and recreation. Here are my observations this spring of the Milwaukee River in front of my house.

As of June 6, 2009, the water level is four feet lower than its natural and historical level. I've seen a marked absence of Bluegills, Sunfish, Catfish, Bullheads, Northern, Bass, Western and Midland Painted Turtles, Common Snapping Turtle, Green Heron, Night Heron, Egrets, and Coots. But what I have seen is an abundance of hundreds of yards of mosquito-breeding puddles in front of my property. During the spring runoff, the river's currents scoured into the river gravel these wonderful, made-to-order incubators for the cute mosquito larvae wigglers. The abundance of algae covering this gravel is an exceptional food source for this Wisconsin State Insect. Can you say "West Nile Virus?" Ahhhh, did I mention the lovely aroma given off by the thin layers of ooze on the river gravel? No? Well, depending on the warmth of the day and the directness of the sun, this football field-sized area of river bottom rivals our hatched mosquitoes as the gift that keeps on giving. I've not seen anyone fishing. Where are the fishermen, now that the river is running free? Paddlers also have become an extremely rare site. I've seen a pair more drifting then paddling in the narrowed river channel. The Boys and Girls Clubs paddlers are nowhere to be found. Hikers? Nope, the river bottom is just too soggy and smelly. Long live the Lincoln Park Lagoon & Urban Wildlife Place.

Sincerely,

River Bro

Now- River Otter here again- I missed Thursday night's MRPA meeting. It sounded like it was a good one.
I'm wondering, does anyone from the MRPA ever read my blog anymore? I no longer post much about the dam or the group. It just didn't seem like a useful tool for getting out any information, as was my initial hope and inspiration for starting it. I just got lots of nasty comments from anti-dam folks, and verbal comments like "Only our enemies read it, anyway." A few nice emails came in here and there though, and informational ones like this. So, I just post (almost) whatever I feel like now. The Internet is very accommodating that way.

If any MRPA members or sympathizers still read this (or enemies, or frenemies), leave a comment. At this point, I doubt that anything could hurt my feelings any worse than they were already today, so feel free to go at it.

Differences between sea otters and river otters

Sometimes well-meaning folks send me pictures of Sea Otters. OK, it was only once, but I just wanted to clear up any misconceptions. Below are sea otters. Yes, sea otters do "hold hands" in the water- they hang out that way, in groups called rafts. A raft of otters!
see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Sea otters are a completely different species than Northern River Otters.

They live in the ocean (as opposed to rivers and other fresh water). They are simply not as cute. Although, if I were by the ocean, it would be pretty cool to see them, I am just not as enamored. De gustibus non est disputandem, I guess.

Sea otters are almost completely water-dwelling creatures. They rarely, if ever, venture onto land, where they are clumsy- in fact, they even sleep in the water. Their hind flippers simply don't allow for much agility out of water. Sea otters float on their backs, mostly, and are one of the few species besides Homo Sapiens that use tools- they place mussels on their bellies, and use rocks to crack the shells open. River otters don't do this; instead, they swim in a more typical fashion (belly down) and are just about as comfortable romping on land as they are in the water.

For more information on sea otters, here is a fact sheet from the Vancouver Aquarium.

Cleaner waters bring more otters!

I found this article from the Boston Globe not only cute but very encouraging!


From the article:
"The day before New Year's Eve, Maury Eldridge was kayaking on the Charles River in Needham near the Dover line when he spotted a pair of slender brown animals sitting on a chunk of ice.

As he paddled closer, the pair of North American river otters dived into the water. A few moments later, they reappeared through a hole in the ice and stared right at Eldridge, who quickly grabbed his camera...

Eldridge was not the only one excited by the sighting. The Charles River Watershed Association hailed the documented presence of otters so close to Boston as a mark of important progress. "It is a sign of the health of the river," said Rebecca Scibek Wickham, outreach coordinator for the local environmental group. "From our perspective, this shows that the river is becoming cleaner, and it is able to support more wildlife."

Increased fish diversity-- good news

Will Wawrzyn of the DNR spoke at length yesterday at the PEE Committee meeting. I was particularly interested in what he had to say about fish diversity. He had a powerpoint slide showing that there was a jump in total number of species and total number of native species in the North Avenue Dam site in 1997 (the year of partial removal, though it had been open since late 1990.) I tried to find this specific slide online, but I found better: this 2005 DNR report that discusses the subject at length. In particular, I wondered if the increase in fish diversity and number was as much or more due to the abatement, removal, and washing out to the lake (since the dam was open for sediments to wash though) of PCB's, heavy metals, and whatever other contaminants had settled there.

Changing Habitat and Biodiversity of the
Lower Milwaukee River and Estuary
"The Kletzsch Park station is an upstream site, [upstream from the Estabrook Dam also] which was not influenced by the NorthAvenue Dam impoundment. The upstream end of the station is fast flowing riffle, immediately downstream of the Kletzsch Park Dam (see Figure 5). The downstream section has some deep holes, and glides with overhanging tree branches, large boulders, and undercut banks providing fish cover. We recorded a total of 29 native species in five years of sampling, ranging from 11 species in 1996 to 23 species in 2001(Table 7). We could not sample this section in 1997 due to logistical reasons. Common carp was the only exotic species captured. The few walleye that were captured belonged to the recent stocking effort, demonstrating that the stocked walleye swim past the Estabrook Falls and Dam. Almost all the species captured at this station were also found in the Capitol Drive station except an occasional brassy minnow and fantail darter. At least seven species occurred consistently in all samples – spotfin shiner, common shiner, sand shiner, bluntnose minnow, rock bass, smallmouth bass, and logperch – although the numbers differed from year to year."

Keep in mind that the Estabrook Dam is located between the Capitol Drive sampling site and the Kletzch Park site.

"Other dams on theMilwaukee River including Estabrook, Kletzsch and Thiensville should be studied to see if removal or fish passage can be accomplished with minimal impact to the environment and conflicts with different user groups in those areas."

Photo taken by me in October, 2007. I photographed what I thought was a random fisherman, and when I asked him a question about the area, I realized he is a man I work with. What a small world we live in.