by Tom Kruzen, Mining Chair/Ozark Chapter/ Sierra Club and Director of the Center for Responsibility and Accountable Public Servants (CRAPS)
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Rage could have described my aura last October as I walked through the door, however, Angel told me that there has to be another word that more accurately described my mood of that day. Several years ago I swore to my wife and myself that there would be a kinder/gentler (at least a more civil) Tom. This was not working that cold day in October 2004. I had just returned from a trip to one of my favorite spots on the South Prong of the Jacks Fork River. I was looking for a small limestone rock I could use as an example of karst at an upcoming water education conference at the St. Louis Science Center. What I found instead was the finest example of river rape that I had ever seen. My favorite respite from the “real” world had been a river crossing with a low water bridge and a great river bottom hardwood forest replete with goldenseal and ginseng, along with orchids and waldsteinia fragarioides (barren strawberry), a Missouri rare and endangered plant. Several years ago the previous landowner had done a pretty heavy high-grade timber harvest on the east hillside but it was recovering. It still had an assemblage of peace and solace, commodities rarely acknowledged by state and federal resource handlers. The sight my eyes saw this day was a 600 yard bulldozed riverbed and river bank up and down stream from the low water bridge on Texas County Stillhouse Road, known as Dixon Crossing. This is accessed by taking NN Highway north about five miles west of Mountain View. Someone with entirely too much time and/or money had gouged the riverbed, removing six–seven feet of the bed and dozing it upon the river bank, smothering the well established bank side vegetation to a depth of 10–12 feet. The gravel had been stacked as if to harvest in long extended piles crafted to a totally unstable 40 degree angle! As I surveyed the damage, my eyes came upon two newly created twenty foot-wide channels cut deeply across the island that is on the upstream side of the bridge. This island formerly had a slow seeping backwater slough on its north side. In high flood stage, this slough took the burden off the south channel. The two recent cuts now diverted the almost the entire south flow around the island to the north slough. Someone had changed the entire river.
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At first I thought someone or perhaps the county was doing illegal gravel mining, but it did not look as if any gravel had been removed. It had simply been rearranged. Upon further investigation, a little tributary, Little Pine Creek, which empties into the south channel a few hundred yard upstream from the bridge had also been straightened—scraped and raped a couple of hundred yards from the mouth upstream. All this to what purpose? Enraged, I called Missouri Department of Natural Resources (MDNR), Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) and the Army Corps of Engineers because this apparently fell under their purview. Not only had the macroinvertebrate life of the stream been killed, crushed and stranded on dry land but the valuable bankside vegetation—the willows and sycamores that hold the silt, gravel and rich bottomland loam in place, but these thieves had actually changed the course of the river, all possible violations of Sections 303 and 404 of the federal Clean Water Act. Also, even though this part of the river is not included on the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, it is still a federally and state protected Outstanding Resource Waterway. I reminded the bureaucrats of this as they told me where to direct my anger in writing. I filed a written complaint and faxed it to the lame-duck governor and the agencies. I explained to them I was being a good boy and the words I was using were toned down for their benefit. I also reminded them of the importance of this river—and that it was major reason I moved here from Iowa a quarter century ago—the clear unspoiled waters of the Jacks Fork.
The next day Bill Zeaman from MDNR’s Land Reclamation division (573-751-4041) and Arthur Goodin from MDNR’s Southeast Regional Office (573- 840-9750) showed up along with Mary Palmer, a fisheries biologist from the West Plain’s Office of MDC. I met them there with a compact disc of 50 or 60 pictures I had taken. During the next week, the bureaucratic shuffle went something like this:
1) MDC claimed they were not a “regulatory agency” regarding water, and no dead fish were found as this had been done several weeks before, and any fish were gone. (MDC is a Stream Team Partner)
2) MDNR claimed that no real pollution had been evidenced as much of the silt had already been flushed downstream and so could not bring any laws to bear. I asked about the new gravel mining rules and they said that if it was a county road crew, they are exempt from the rules. (MDNR is a Stream Team Partner)
3) Later that week, Louis Clarke of the Army Corps (Walnut Ridge, Arkansas Office) came down along with EPA Water Enforcement Agent, Larry Long (800-223-0425). They agreed that what was done was bad and broke all kinds of federal rules and laws. The Army Corps has a Memorandum of Understanding—that when something like this is done to an Outstanding National Resource Waterway the jurisdiction would be handed over to the Environmental Protection Agency, in this case, Region Vll from Kansas City.
Investigations by these agencies and the West Plains Daily Quill found that this RIVER RAPE had been accomplished by the Pierce Township Road Board. Texas County has a real strange township form of government, whereby liability for roads is transferred from the county to the townships. The county commissioners have no “say” in this matter, although Texas County Commissioner, Linda Garrett has sparred with Ken at Land Reclamation Commission meetings in support of extending gravel mining!
She and the County Commissioners were unaware of the damage at Dixon Crossing. She referred us to the Piece Township Road Board. A year earlier this very same group of good ole’ boys had torn up another upstream tributary of the South Prong and got in trouble over it from the Army Corps. They issued a “cease and desist” order, which obviously did no good. These “public servants” simply moved down stream. It could get the township board up to $33,000 per day from that stop order—that’s times 365.
An interesting factoid emerged from the Quill’s investigation. While Linda Garrett and these road commissioners like to claim their extended gravel mining rights under the heading of “private property rights”—none of these parties contacted the landowners through which the river flows and their bulldozer marched. I have included before and after photographs which do not begin to tell the story but give you and indication of the type of reckless ignorance that is currently allowed on some of the cleanest and most pristine waterways in the state of Missouri and the Midwest.
It has been almost four months now. The elections are behind us and the new governor is making changes at MDNR as is the White House at EPA. High waters have carried tons of gravel, silt and topsoil down the river loosened by compounded ignorance, greed and just plain ornery stupidity.
OUTRAGE is the proper emotion here and I encourage, nay, challenge you all to contact these public servants and register your outrage over this. Ask them to make the Pierce Township Road Commission pay for properly done river restoration. Contact the road commissioners and tell them how they damaged the waters of the United States and broke the law!
Contact Information:
Linda Garrett
Texas County Commission
210 North Grand Avenue
Houston, Missouri, 65483
(417) 967-5465
Donald Shelhammer
Texas County Presiding Commissioner
210 North Grand Avenue
Houston, Missouri, 65483
(417) 457-6621
George Beltz
Pierce Township Road Commission:Treasurer
19506 Highway “Y”
Willow Springs, Missouri, 65793
(417) 932-4761
Dale Bradford
Pierce Township Road Commission: President
1653 Bradford Road
Willow Springs, Missouri, 65793
(417) 932-4841
Troy Bradford
Pierce Township Road Commission: Secretary
1792 Bradford Road
Willow Springs, Missouri, 65793
(417) 932-4387
MDNR Toll Free Number: (800) 361-4827
MDC Toll Free Number: (800) 669-3787
Governor Matt Blunt: (573) 751-3222