Brian Johnson gives tour of the Army Corps of Engineers sounding boat. - FWS photo

The Fish and Wildlife Tech Sections of the Upper Mississippi River Conservation Committee (UMRCC) held a joint meeting at Camp Okotipi just south of Hannibal, Missouri.  The meetings were well attended and the food and lodging were excellent. 

A special thanks to Travis Moore, Ross Dames, Mike Flaspoler and other Missouri staff members that assisted on hosting this meeting. 

Highlights of the meeting were a presentation by Mike Reed, Missouri DOC, on propagating aquatic vegetation to re-establish in small to medium impoundments. 

Both sections scheduled excellent field trips.  The fish section went to Lock and Dam 22 to discuss plans for a fish passage structure.  Special thanks to Mark Cornish (COE – Rock Island) for setting this up.  Brian Johnson

(COE – St. Louis) arranged a tour of the COE bio-acoustic boat.  Attendees were able to board the “Boyer” to observe the technologies currently being used to accurately map bathymetry, flow velocities, substrate types and fish populations in tailwaters of major dams.

The Wildlife crew went on a tour of the Ted Shanks, Clearance Canyon, and B.K Leach Wildlife Areas.  There were discussions on several resource issues including connectivity, vegetation, drawdowns, mussels, neotropical migrants, shore birds,

waterfowl, CCP, etc.  See the UMRCC Web Site: www.mississippi-river.com/umrcc  for  full meeting minutes concerning these topics and click on Tech Sections. 

The UMRCC Water Quality Section met again this year at the beautiful U of Iowa Mississippi River Environmental Research Station.  Many thanks to Dr. Nakato for allowing us to meet at this wonderful facility and to John Olson (Iowa DNR) for organizing and running the meeting.  Meeting attendance was excellent and the minutes can be seen at the UMRCC web site.