Andy Starostka, Wyatt Doyle and Clayton Ridenour of the Columbia FWCO met with partners to visit several Habitat Assessment and Monitoring Project (HAMP) sampling sites in Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri to discuss issues relating to the monitoring program.   Partners included biologists, hydrologists and engineers from the Army Corps of Engineers, Nebraska Game and Fish Commission and other U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service offices.

Site visits started near Missouri Valley, Iowa where several bends were viewed by boat.  This area is above the Platte River and is characterized as narrow in width with tall high banks and less turbid water.  In the afternoon, the group moved downstream to Nebraska City and visited Hamburg and Lower Hamburg Chutes.

This portion of the river is larger and wider with more potential for habitat creation.  The Platte River contributes a substantial amount of sediment into the Missouri River that provides material to create aquatic habitat.

The group met at the Missouri Department of Conservation office in St. Joseph on the second day to discuss data analysis needs and sampling design concerns.  Much of the day consisted of discussions surrounding integration of HAMP’s two components; biological sampling and physical mapping/modeling. 

The group met on the final day at Overton Bottoms near Columbia, Missouri. This portion of the Lower Missouri River has several habitat construction projects, some that date back to the late 1990’s.  This was an opportunity to observe how habitat projects may develop after several years.

STEP student Cody Luebbering displays two catfish collected while sampling the Missouri River with HAMP.

These site visits were intended to demonstrate differences in the Missouri River from Nebraska to Missouri. This allowed field biologists to observe the differences in the river’s scale and physical features and provided a better understanding of sampling needs and challenges faced by each office.  This project will assist the Service’s Fishery Program with meeting its Partnership and Accountability goal of developing collaborative conservation strategies for aquatic resources.

Andy Starostka