ANDREW GOODALL GREW UP ON AN IOWA FARM near the Quad 

Cities, not even 15 minutes from the banks of the Mississippi River. More 

than most Midwestern middle schoolers, he was struck daily by what the 

river meant to his family and those around him.

“I saw towboats and barges on the river, and I knew that those gave us an 

outlet to get our corn and soybeans to market,” he says. “And I spent half of 

my weekends in summer on the river and still do to this day with my family.”

Goodall is now leading a team comprising individuals from the Corps’ 

Rock Island, St. Louis, and St. Paul districts on a newly funded effort to ensure the river stays 

sustainable for both the ecosystem and industries like agriculture—for the next century and 

beyond. He’s honored, he says, “to be part of history, of a once-in-a-hundred-year impact on 

the Upper Mississippi.”

Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and through it authorized the 

first construction starts for the Navigation and Ecosystem Sustainability Program (NESP), 15 

years after its initial authorization. The bill immediately provides $732 million for the U.S. Army 

Corps of Engineers to construct a new lock at Lock 25 in Winfield, Missouri; that represents a 

revolutionary step in a system that for the most part was constructed in the 1920s and 1930s.

Additionally, the act provides $97.1 million for the river’s first-ever fish passage system, this 

one at Lock and Dam 22 in Saverton (See page 3). The March 12 omnibus appropriations package passed by Congress added another $45 million for additional ecosystem restoration and 

navigation improvement projects that include design of a new 1,200-foot lock on the Illinois 

MISSISSIPPI VALLEY DIVISION · SPRING 2022

Corps launches 

‘once in a century’ 

opportunity on the 

Mississippi

Continued on page 2 >>

Investing in a river for all

Our Mississippi is a newsletter of the U.S. 

Army Corps of Engineers about its work 

in the Mississippi River Basin toward both 

economic and ecological integrity of the river 

system. It is published by the U.S. Army Corps 

of Engineers, Mississippi Valley Division, in 

accordance with AR 360-1 for its Mississippi 

Valley workforce and external audiences and 

collaborative partners including other Corps’ 

districts and stakeholders within the division’s 

area of responsibility. The views and opinions 

expressed are not necessarily those of the 

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Army 

or the U.S. Department of Defense.
River. Beyond that, officials say the construction start paves the way for the 

future funding of six additional locks and the many environmental projects 

that have been prioritized through the dual-mission program.

“To date, this is the only Corps program with two different business lines 

under one umbrella, and it is a very innovative way of thinking,” said Goodall, 

the NESP program manager. “The most important piece to me is that it had 

navigation industry and environmental stakeholders come together.”

On the Upper Mississippi, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers operates 29 

locks and dams between Minneapolis and St. Louis, as a system serving to 

keep the river at a navigable depth and let barges carrying Midwestern grain 

(and more) travel the step system from one river pool to another.

Through those locks and dams and on the open river that flows south to 

the Port of New Orleans, barges transport more than 60 percent of America’s 

corn and soybeans, sharing the river with 25 percent of North America’s fish 

species and flyway with 40 percent of North America’s migratory waterfowl 

and shorebirds. The river is widely considered the safest, cheapest and most 

environmentally friendly method for transporting bulk commodities; a 2019 

USDA study also showed that rebuilding the NESP locks will inject $72 billion 

additional dollars into the nation’s Gross Domestic Product.

“With new modern locks, we’re going to help farmers get their products to 

market faster and more efficiently, lower costs and keep American agriculture globally competitive,” President Joe Biden said in an April address.

To Andrew Schimpf, whose job is to oversee the locks—including Lock 25—

within the Corps’ St. Louis District, it’s just time. It is testament to the skill of 

the Corps’ maintenance staff, and perhaps a lot of good luck, that a lock hasn’t 

broken down for long periods of time, potentially shutting the river down.

“One thing I like to ask is ‘Can you picture or name a highway, any transportation system, even a railroad that was constructed in the 1920s—almost 100 

years ago now—and is still in use exactly as it was?’”

The new lock will add both safety and efficiency, says Schimpf, operations 

manager for the Mississippi Rivers Project which includes missions like operating the locks, dredging, shoreline rehabilitation, and overseeing public lands 

and recreation on 300 miles on the Mississippi and 80 miles on the Illinois.

It will definitely add speed. Tow operators currently can move through the 

Mel Price Locks and Dam and Lock 27 (both 1,200 feet) in about 30 minutes 

each, Schimpf says. When they come to 600-foot lock 25, he says, “it takes 21⁄2 

hours on a good day with no wind, drift, outdraft or ice. A bad day can take 8 

or 12 hours or longer.”

Lock 25 carries through the most tonnage of all seven locks identified as 

priorities through NESP; it also has some of the strongest currents, making 

the locking process extra dangerous. But while a new lock there will add 

immediate efficiencies and safety, NESP is a systemic approach, he says. 

“We’re trying to improve the system as a whole. This is the first step.”

It will make the process immediately safer for towboat crews and Corps 

employees at the lock site, notes Paul Rohde, vice president of Waterways 

Council Inc., a strong supporter of NESP.

When going through a 600-foot lock with 1,200 feet of barges, deck crews 

have to break off the first nine barges from their 15-barge tow, lock the nine 

through, pull them out with a tow haulage unit and tie them up. “That requires 

a lot of momentum,” he says. “Picture all 16,000 tons held in place with just a 

three-inch lock line. It’s staggering when you think of the logistics.

“The lock chamber cycles back to prepare for the second cut. The crew 

climbs up the lock wall ladder, walks back to the other six barges and towboat, climbs down the lock wall, locks the six barges and vessel through then 

rejoins the two so it can depart the lock. This is an arduous process, even on 

a day of good weather. It’s made more dangerous during snow, ice, night visibility, wind and other conditions.”

Additionally, adding a second lock creates a two-way river, letting 

boats coming in the opposite direction use the current 600-foot chamber 

concurrently.

Improving a nationally significant ecosystem

But enlarging a system of locks too small for current industry standards is 

only one piece of a project that stems from Congressional recognition that 

the Mississippi River is both a nationally significant commercial navigation 

system and nationally significant ecosystem.

Kirk Hansen, the Mississippi River Habitat Coordinator at the Iowa 

Department of Natural Resources, is one member of a vast partnership 

charged with implementing the massive program he calls both exciting and 

terrifying in its scope. One of the initial projects will restore an Iowa lake that 

currently has poor water quality and fish habitat, but that’s just the beginning. 

“The recognition the river has multiple uses and the formulating of a program 

that benefits all of those is what makes it so awesome,” he said.

Notes project manager Goodall: “It truly will alter the future of the Upper 

Mississippi River System and ensure it remains vital for the transportation 

and ecosystem aspects for the next hundred-plus years. I don’t say that lightly. 

I want to make sure I stress that this is very, very important.” —K.S.

BELOW: This chart showcases some construction-ready Navigation and 

Ecosystem Sustainability Program projects including “small scale measures” for safer navigation and channel and island restoration for wildlife 

habitat and more. RIGHT: Crews disconnect and reconnect barges that 

have to be sent through a lock like 25 (PICTURED HERE) in two batches. 

Planned new locks will make the process safer and more efficient.

Learn more about the Navigation and Ecosystem Sustainability Program’s history and 

funded projects: www.mvr.usace.army.mil/Missions/Navigation/NESP.

2 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mississippi Valley Division
Restoring historic migrations to 

the Upper Mississippi River

Construction will soon begin on a rocky cascade 

designed to allow fish to pass Mississippi River Lock and 

Dam 22 and restore a migration path that once existed 

for thousands of years.

BEFORE THE DAMS WERE BUILT, fish roamed freely through 

the Mississippi River watershed for almost 12,000 years, since the last glacier 

retreated.

“North America’s network of rivers and streams are used by fish for spawning, nursery areas, feeding and growth,” said Mark Cornish, a biologist for the 

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. “Industrial development changed everything 

in the late 1700s as mill dams, hydroelectric facilities and navigation dams 

were constructed, affecting how and when migratory fish could access the 

watershed. The biggest recorded change came in 1913 with the completion of 

the Keokuk-Hamilton Dam, now known as Lock and Dam 19.”

This was and still is the largest dam on the Mississippi River, and it blocks 

all movement upstream save for that of the lucky fish that times the lockage 

well enough to move through with a boat.

Within weeks of the completion of the dam, local residents noticed extraordinary numbers of fish trying to swim upstream, only to be trapped below 

the dam. That barrier, and others that followed, thwarted fish migration on 

the river. It also affected other organisms like mussels that hitchhiked on fish 

when the larval mussels attached to the gills. Fewer fish migrating upstream 

meant fewer mussels in the headwaters. The Mississippi is believed to host 

156 fish and 53 mussel species.

“In 1913 most fish in the Mississippi River were not considered migratory, 

but 100 years of fisheries science has changed how we understand fish movement and answered the question of why fish piled up at the Keokuk-Hamilton 

Dam,” Cornish said. “Most river fish species make short migrations, often 

associated with seasonal movements to preferred environments for spawning, feeding and winter survival. Freedom of movement for both short and 

long fish migrations is needed for a healthy river”

The U.S. Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes $97.1 million for 

the Army Corps of Engineers to complete design and start construction of the 

L&D 22 passage—a program that will restore that migration freedom. It is one 

of five upper Mississippi River fish passages authorized by the current 15-year 

federal Navigation and Ecosystem Sustainability Program (NESP).

Construction is expected to start in 2023 on the passage at Lock and Dam 

22, which will be 200 feet wide and 560 feet long. The project is located near 

Saverton, Mo., approximately 10 miles south of Hannibal. The fishway will be 

built with rocks formed into a watery staircase that passes a series of placid 

resting pools as it descends gradually 11.5 feet into the river below. Since this 

is the first on the Mississippi River, the fish in and around the structure will 

be carefully monitored by state and federal natural resource agencies to glean 

answers to questions about fish migration.

Lock and Dam 22 was selected for the first passage by an interagency science team after comparing needs at 29 dams on the Mississippi and Kaskaskia 

Rivers and the Illinois Waterway, said Rachel K. Hawes, the project manager 

at the Corps of Engineers District office in Rock Island, Ill.

“The team believed that most scientific information could be collected 

at this location at the least cost,” she said, and that “the risk of harming the 

environment by passing invasive fish was low because invasive carp were 

spawning above and below this area.” —R.S.

Paddlefish are among the migratory fish 

prevalent in this part of the Mississippi.

New Golden Age of Water Infrastructure launched

The Upper Mississippi River 9-Foot Channel Project—29 locks extending 

for 669 miles of shipping channel that changes 400 feet in depth between 

Minneapolis and St. Louis—is among the largest and most ambitious river 

projects ever constructed in the United States.

Promoted as a way to help the country’s heartland during the farm crisis of the 

time and address the disparities between rail and water freight rates, the project 

went on to transcend political boundaries. Though authorized in 1930 during the 

Herbert Hoover presidency, the actual construction of the locks—an undertaking 

so massive that the era became known as the golden age of the U.S. Army Corps of 

Engineers—was a centerpiece of Franklin Roosevelt’s economic agenda when promoted as a massive New Deal employment program during the Great Depression.

Similar bipartisan support for infrastructure projects that will help Midwestern 

farmers and the ecosystem of the river, both, is ushering in what could be called the 

second golden age of water infrastructure investment, says Edward Belk, Director 

of Programs for the Mississippi Valley Division.

“We’re talking unprecedented funding,” he said, “and we’re going to be able to 

get after a lot of really critical needs of this nation with that investment,”

Among other things, the funding covers the first of six planned new locks on 

the Upper Mississippi River. This is critical because while existing locks continue 

to perform well beyond their intended service life, adding system resiliency and 

redundancy in case of a lock failure that could shut down river transportation is key, 

Belk says. Sixty percent of the nation’s grain exports travel down the Mississippi 

River, and “we as a nation don’t necessarily compete or win in global markets 

with the most favorable tax or regulatory climate. We 

compete and win with unmatched transportation efficiency. That’s the secret sauce for our country, and 

these locks and dams are a vital part of that transportation network.”

Concurrent investment on the Lower Mississippi 

River is amplifying the benefits and ability for the U.S. 

agribusiness to compete on a global scale, he says. 

A $238 million project led by the Corps, the state of 

Louisiana and Port of New Orleans is deepening the 

navigation channel along the lowest 258-mile reach 

of the Mississippi River from 45 feet to a new 50-foot 

standard to provide more efficient deep draft access 

for larger Panamax vessels traversing an expanded 

Panama Canal. Coupling the ongoing deep draft 

improvements at the lower end of the Mississippi River 

with an improved lock and dam system on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers 

will together strengthen the global economic competitiveness of U.S. grain exports 

from the Midwest’s breadbasket.

“The important thing to know is that this is a generational opportunity to make a 

huge impact on critical infrastructure,” Belk says. “This ushers in a new golden age 

nationally for the Corps of Engineers to make a big difference. These are historic 

and exciting times, and it’s a tremendous privilege to be part of that.” —K.S.

“We’re talking 

unprecedented 

funding ... and 

we’re going to be 

able to get after a 

lot of really critical 

needs of this 

nation with that 

investment.”

—EDWARD BELK, DIRECTOR 

OF PROGRAMS FOR THE 

MISSISSIPPI VALLEY DIVISION

Our Mississippi · Spring 2022 3
How much water’s in that snow?

Just as many Midwesterners were doing in late February, Bill Odell and Jesse 

Scott of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were donning their tallest pairs of 

snow boots and warmest gloves and setting out for some time in the snow.

But as temperatures fell to as low as 40 below zero in the northernmost reaches 

they explored, the pair of hydrologic technicians from the St. Paul District were on 

a specific mission—one with ramifications along the entire 2,340 mile reach of the 

Mississippi River.

Armed with hollow tubes that could expand to reach the bottom of the deepest 

drifts and with portable scales for measuring weight of the melted snow, they set 

out to capture a “moment in time” look at how much water was being stored in 

those snowy drifts at the upper reaches of the Mississippi River watershed. That’s 

key because the water melts as it makes its way downriver toward flood-prone 

towns further south.

By measuring depths over the same week at hundreds of locations across Minnesota, Wisconsin, 

North Dakota and sometimes Iowa, the pair and 

others at specific field stations gather data to plug 

into models used by flood forecasters to determine 

what the upcoming season might look like. It’s also 

used by operators of Corps reservoirs charged with 

keeping the Mississippi River at a navigable depth, 

letting them know if this is a year to hold back more 

water than usual or if the snowpack is light, to let 

more go.

The process is a tricky one due to that Midwestern 

adage, “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.”

Says Odell: “When I was out on the road one time 

it snowed out there. That changes all those measurements. Other years have gone into 40-degree 

days with the snow melting as we’re trying to catch 

samples.”

Spreading the data over such a large geographic area—in this case, between 2,000 and 3,000 miles—helps to offset 

weather unpredictability, they say, and lead to data used both for the primary purpose of flood forecasting and other 

key uses too. It affects fisheries, for example, because there’s a direct tie between snowpack and spawning seasons 

for walleye.

The data has not all been analyzed, but anecdotally shows that on some reaches there was slightly more snowpack 

than usual, at other reaches slightly less.

The process

The collections are done at predetermined sites used year after year for continuity, and each site is tested with multiple samples over a 30-mile radius and on spots that are representative of a particular area and not, for example, 

shaded by massive pines. Placing the snow tube from top of the snow to the ground (this year’s deepest spot was 

47.5 inches), they collect a single sample. That snow is emptied into a ziplock bag and weighed to calculate the Snow 

Water Equivalency or how much water is in the snowpack. One ounce of snow is equal to one inch of water.

The researchers also make notes on whether it was snowing or sunny, if the snow was wet from a recent rain or 

extra dry. The denser the snowpack, the more water content per inch, and the researchers uploaded findings directly 

to the district’s water management team and river regulators through a new mobile application, Collector for GIS.

Since he started measuring in 2012, Odell says the work has been cancelled only a couple of times, only then because 

there was not enough snow.

Making this year’s collection extra memorable was the “guest collectors” who came along on some of the measuring 

trips. Those included the hydraulics and hydrology chief from the Mississippi Valley Division, a forecaster with the 

National Weather Service and a liaison officer for the Brazilian Army currently based along the Mississippi. Scott says 

he put the guests to work and on short breaks taught them how to make snowballs and took them sledding.

Beyond the fun, he said, “they got a better sense of the methods used for collecting data and efficiency at which we 

were able to turn it around.” —K.S.

Snow tracking in 

the Upper Midwest 

key to spring 

flood forecasts

Warming climate 

puts some

river processes

ON THIN ICE

Ice—sometimes chunky and thick, in 

some places thin—covers about half of 

the Mississippi River for at least part of 

each winter.

And as scientists learn more about 

what goes on beneath that ice cover, 

they’re increasingly concerned about 

predictions of a warming trend.

“We used to assume that there wasn’t 

much biological activity under the ice, but 

there actually can be a lot; nutrients are 

processed, and if light is available, there 

is plant and algal growth under the ice,” 

says Kathi Jo Jankowski, a U.S. Geological 

Survey research ecologist at the Upper 

Midwest Environmental Sciences Center 

in LaCrosse, Wisconsin.

As the cover declines, additional sunlight and warmth will increase the “winter 

gross primary productivity” in rivers, providing more nutrients for river organisms 

as well as larger and potentially toxic algae 

blooms, she said.

Today, river ice cover can extend from 

the headwaters to as far south as St. 

Louis, she says. By 2100, under the highest climate air temperature scenario, 

that will only extend to approximately to 

Minneapolis and “a big part of the river 

will no longer be frozen,”

A 2.5-percent mean reduction in river 

ice coverage already occurred from 1984 

to 2018, satellite images show. Average 

ice cover on the world’s rivers is projected 

to decline a further 16.7 days per winter 

by 2100 with some rivers becoming completely ice-free year-round, according to a 

study cited in the January issue of Nature 

Magazine.

“We are realizing we need to pay 

attention,” Jankowski says.

FROM LEFT: Ice covers about half of the 

Mississippi River for some part of each river, 

and scientists are still learning more about 

the processes that happen beneath. The 

thickness—of ice and snowpack—is the subject 

of a Corps measurement study conducted 

across the upper river (see map) each winter.

4 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mississippi Valley Division
Partnering to 

restore nature, 

protect cities

GRAFTON, ILLINOIS embraces its status 

as a true river town—one that draws tourists 

for eagle spotting, for fishing its shoreline, 

boating its marina or sipping a “riverbend 

red” at a winery overlooking the Mississippi.

But a waterfront without levees, situated 

at the confluence of the Mississippi and 

Illinois Rivers, is vulnerable to floods, which 

explains the enthusiasm of Grafton Mayor 

Mike Morrow’s enthusiasm for a new habitat 

restoration and enhancement project just 

upstream on the Two Rivers National Wildlife 

Refuge. The project will restore or enhance 

some 600 acres of wetlands and floodplain 

forest, an area that will be able to capture, 

hold, and then gradually released nearly 327 

million gallons of floodwaters.

“Grafton relies heavily on tourism as our 

lifeblood, so our city is open to the river,” 

Mayor Morrow continued.

“We need areas where that water can go 

naturally. We rely on natural storage areas for 

water, that can take the ponding away from 

the city and move it to areas where it can sit.”

The new project will do just that.

Created by a partnership that includes a 

coalition of river mayors, the National Park 

Service, Ducks Unlimited Inc., and the U.S. 

Army Corps of Engineers–St. Louis District, 

it exemplifies an approach called natural 

infrastructure. It works by returning backwaters, sloughs, and floodplain forests to their 

traditional role. In the process of reconnecting these lands to the river, valuable wildlife 

habitat is created, biodiversity is enhanced, 

and flood damage and infrastructure maintenance costs are reduced.

“It’s all just different ways of connecting 

these natural assets together in such a way that 

they can work to mitigate these disasters, provide habitat, clean the water, reduce climate 

impacts and sequester carbon,” said Colin Wellenkamp, executive director of the Mississippi River Cities and 

Towns Initiative. MRCTI is an association of 101 riverbank city mayors like Morrow dedicated to restoring the 

ecology and economy of the Mississippi River corridor.

The project will have an immediate positive impact on the refuge’s habitat management capability, according to Charlie Deutsch, manager of the Two Rivers refuge. The project will update pumps by July or August, 

perfect timing for fall migration along North America’s most heavily used corridor for food and resting.

Each partner brings unique strengths to the project. Ducks Unlimited Inc. is partnering with the U.S. Army 

Corps of Engineers–St. Louis District to install the wells and pumps to move water around the site. The Corps 

will design and build the earthwork that enhances the wetland units, says Brandon Schneider, the Corps project manager. The Corps will finish off the project by reforesting upland portions of the site with flood-tolerant 

trees while the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will handle long-term operation and maintenance costs.

The project is just one of three pilots (with more in the planning) that have grown from a collaboration 

between MRCTI and Ducks Unlimited that looks at regionally specific solutions. It covers 33 cities in eight 

states with plans to add more, Wellenkamp says. The mayors in his group are interested in protecting their 

communities’ homes, streets, businesses, and other infrastructure, and that complements Ducks Unlimited’s 

history of successful wetland conservation at a landscape scale.

“We started to notice that we both wanted the same thing. Their waterfowl restoration areas were taking on 

floodwaters that would otherwise go into our downtowns,” Wellenkamp said.

“It came together as a nice marriage, if you will.”

Solutions that protect Mississippi River cities and towns are urgently needed in the face of climate change, he 

notes. Two Degrees Adapt, a consulting firm specializing in climate adaptation, helped the coalition identify the 

best natural infrastructure solutions for varied problems and landscapes along the Mississippi River corridor. 

That includes restoration of wetlands, regenerative agriculture, expanded floodplains, reforestation and more.

“We have had $210 billion worth of actual losses since 2005 along the [Mississippi River] corridor itself. That 

number is approaching $250 billion basin-wide,” Wellenkamp said. “We need more diverse solutions that can 

operate on larger scales against multiple types of impacts.” —D.D.

Austin LeRay,

Natural Resource Specialist/

Park Ranger, Bonne Carre Spillway, 

Norco, Louisiana

“I was born in Thibodaux, which is in southeast 

Louisiana, about an hour from the spillway. I grew 

up hunting, fishing, and my favorite thing to do is 

just be in the swamp, be outside.

“When I think of the swamp, the culture, 

that vibe, it makes me feel like it did when I was 

growing up. Being with all my family friends, 

everybody getting together cooking, fishing, 

hunting. I think that’s why I’m so connected to it. 

It doesn’t feel like I’m at work; it’s like I’m where 

I’m supposed to be.

“The project’s primary function is flood 

control to prevent the surounding areas from 

flooding and the levees overtopping. Within 

that, it’s six miles long by a mile and a half wide. 

It’s primarily bottomland hardwood. We’ve got 

cypress trees and tupelos. And there’s a lot more 

than just woods; on one side of U.S. 61 is where 

the hunting and fishing takes place, and south of 

that is where we get ATV riders. We have horseback riding trails, and a lot of birdwatchers come 

to look at eagles and migrating birds.

“If the river is high, it might put a halt to planting sunflower seeds. But I can see 50 eagles a 

day because the river is up. That to me is what’s 

so neat. It’s dynamic in that it changes, but when 

it does, it attracts different users.

“I’m a big duck hunter, but I’m not going to go 

hunt something and waste it. If you shoot ducks, 

you have your friends over, and if you catch some 

fish, you’re going to fry them. It’s what connects 

you to the land. Without that, you wouldn’t have 

as much conservation as you do now. It’s why it’s 

so important to me to get people to really see the 

wildlife the spillway has. It makes you appreciate 

it. Understanding why we try to protect and conserve a lot of these things is very important.”

My MISSISSIPPI

FROM TOP: The Two Rivers National Wildlife Refuge was established 

in 1958 to protect and enhance habitat for migratory birds. Now its 

9,225 acres of river and floodplain habitat is a testing ground for a 

natural infrastructure partnership that reconnects land to river and 

reduces flood damage.

Our Mississippi · Spring 2022 5
Hiram H. Chittenden was legendary for his engineering feats, 

extensive scholarship and a 

rugged “can-do” spirit in overcoming 

some of the nation’s fiercest natural and 

man-made challenges.

The same could be said for the first 

two-time winner of the award named 

after this former Brigadier General 

responsible for building much of the road 

system in America’s first national park.

Timothy Bischoff, 55, a selfproclaimed cancer warrior, has let 

nothing—not a bleak survival prognosis, 

not a COVID-19 shut down of in-person 

interpretation—stop him from work 

inspired in part by a notable family 

legacy of Army service.

The award, given earlier this year, 

celebrated the way the full-time ranger 

at the Corps’ Rend Lake Project in 

Illinois created the *USACEeducates 

Program of online lessons inspired by 

Corps interpretive programs. The program wasted no time in reaching 2,125 

seasonal and full-time rangers as well as 

a network of schools that were early in 

the stay-at-home phase of the pandemic 

and hungry for online content with a 

special on-the-scene twist.

“We had 15 rangers that just dove in 

and figured it out by working in teams 

to satisfy the needs of each teaching 

theme with weekly field trips to virtual 

dams, the Smithsonian and other activities all made available via Facebook,” 

Bischoff said.

But this was not his first recognition. The original award, 15 years 

ago, came for his participation in the 

Army’s coast-to-coast reenactment of 

the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The 

humble 5-foot-8-inch living-history buff 

gained a coveted role in the three-year 

excursion after his hobby of reenacting 

a French Territorial Marine locally was revealed to the expedition’s “Corps of 

Discovery Bicentennial Expedition” planning officer.

For the better part of three years, Bischoff then immersed himself in 

the role of George Drouillard, the expedition’s half-French/half–American 

Indian expert hunter, territorial scout and Native American sign language 

interpreter. Bischoff so absorbed Drouillard, that he changed his accent, 

picked up French, learned to think and use art of Indian Sign Language and 

even felt, at times, the spirit of Drouillard along the 4,900-mile trail that 

extended from from Pittsburgh to the mouth of the Columbia River. There 

were first-time location visits, he said, where he oddly needed no explicit 

directions in finding historic or important locations proclaiming “it’s as if I’d 

been there before... I didn’t even need a map.”

So complete was the transformation that he earned the respect of the East 

of the River Band of the Shawnee Tribe, which was Drouillard’s mother’s 

tribe, where members presented him with a medicine bundle, earth from 

their Great House, ash from their sacred fire, as well as wampum belt.

There were many life lessons gained in the shadows of the Teton Mountains 

or along the sandy banks of the shallow Missouri River, said Bischoff, who 

spent parts of three years completing the 2003-to-2006 Corps of Discovery 

Expedition Bicentennial.

These experiences helped in providing 

the spirit, strength, and temerity to beat 

back what was a shocking 2015 cancer 

diagnosis which suggested he had only 

an 11% chance of survival. “I shouldn’t 

be alive today,” explained Bischoff who 

wishes to be fully transparent about his 

current fight and past cancer-related 

challenges.

“Cancer sped me along to make me 

reevaluate my life, and it’s the Army 

ethos that impacted me. That’s built 

in now ... into all of us [in the Corps], 

whether we know it or not,”

After three surgeries and approximately 140 chemotherapy treatments 

over six years, he’s won back health 

throughout most of his body in returning to pre-cancerous levels. And the 

courageous Bischoff predicts he will 

overcome his remaining cancer where 

his last three cancerous polyps (down 

from hundreds just a year ago) have 

retreated from his colon and liver and 

are now in the lower part of his lungs.

“Whether it’s a Ranger in a combat 

zone or fighting a flood, it is truly 

Essayons everyday ... let us try. And 

just like in the Corps, nobody said ‘it’s 

not my job’ on the expedition ... they 

handled challenges just like today. We 

adjust, improvise, and overcome,” he 

added.

He credits his Corps ‘family’ as 

enormously helpful in his return to 

health. They donated more than 900 

hours of medical leave to allow him and 

his family the peace of mind to focus on 

healing and not miss a day of pay. His 

attitude hasn’t hurt either.

He has humorously dubbed the invaders Larry, Moe and Curly after the Three 

Stooges comedians and calls the overall 

cancer he continues to successfully beat 

back “Smaug” after the antagonistic 

dragon featured in the 1937 novel The Hobbit.

Along these lines, Bischoff routinely dons a shaggy wig, a Hawaiian shirt 

and any number of instruments, songs or physical performances to roam the 

Siteman Cancer Center in Saint Louis as part of a spirit-raising troupe called 

the “Shenanigators.” They encourage fellow cancer warriors by offering up a 

mixture of coping support wrapped around often boisterous comedy skits, 

practical jokes and lots of laughter. Bischoff says the Shenanigators is one of 

the most important things he’s done “... as it brings excitement, happiness, 

giggles and joy to the cancer center.” He explained the cancer, “has given me 

all kinds of gifts that I probably wouldn’t have got without going through this 

journey. You can look at it with gratitude and a chance to grow knowing that 

I could get bitter, or I could get better.”

Stories of his career epiphany are equally engaging. He was a boy “who 

always wanted to be a ranger,” he said, since the day the typically wellbehaved eight-year-old disappeared briefly on a family trip to Mesa Verde 

Park in Colorado. He was just chasing down the ranger!

“My family continued up the ladders, not realizing that I had stopped to 

talk to the Ranger at the bottom. My father then had to climb down the ‘up’ 

ladders to find me ... kind of like the only salmon heading downstream when 

all the rest were heading upstream to spawn,” joked Bischoff.

Meet the

‘Can-Do’ Ranger

of the Corps

Bischoff ... immersed himself in the role 

of George Drouillard, the expedition’s 

half-French/half–American Indian expert 

hunter, territorial scout, and Native 

American sign language interpreter. 

Bischoff so absorbed Drouillard that he 

changed his accent, picked up French, 

learned to use Indian Sign Language and 

even felt ... the spirit of Drouillard.

6 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mississippi Valley Division
“I wasn’t lost. I knew exactly where I was. 

Needless to say, dad wasn’t all that happy 

when he found me as this ‘ranger talk’ was 

one of only two times that I can remember 

ever being separated from my parents.”

That episode in a way launched a 32-year 

Army career that put him on the ‘Bischoff 

family tree’ with other family members 

who saw Army service. The family legacy 

included General Patton’s battlefield 

interpreter and another who served in 

“Operation Cowboy,” the effort to repatriate 

the famous Lipizzaner Stallions to safety 

just ahead of the encroaching Red Army in 

the closing days of World War II.

In 1995, the Corps launched the 

Chittenden Award to acknowledge those 

who have risen above the basic Ranger 

expectations. Both the award’s namesake 

and the latest winner were said to have 

demonstrated indefatigable, entrepreneurial 

and revolutionary spirit in tackling their 

particular challenges. Both demonstrated 

a passion for the Army, the American West 

and undeniable leadership during periods 

of significant tumult. Both weathered health 

concerns that sidelined them in various key 

points in their distinguished careers.

Most importantly, however, is their shared 

intense dedication to public service. 

Chittenden, for instance, designed a 

Yellowstone arch that’s inscribed “For the 

Benefit and Enjoyment of the People.” It’s 

this same spirit of service that has driven 

Bischoff to an award-winning standard 

while emphasizing that his Interpretive 

work is a gift.

A career highlight that further draws the 

two together comes up this summer. Bischoff 

will travel with wife Beth to Yellowstone to 

be a ranger for a day (actually two), working 

one day at the boardwalk at Old Faithful, the 

next at Officers Row in Fort Yellowstone and 

park Headquarters at Mammoth. That he 

gets to live a lifelong dream to work there is 

just one thing; he’ll also stay in the old house 

at the Old Faithful Inn, something so special 

to him that he wears a bracelet with the inn’s 

coordinates. What he knows for sure is that 

visitors on those late July days will find the 

happiest ranger they have ever met.

“The reality of this dream actually coming 

true was momentous for me and probably 

the greatest gift that I could receive,” he said. 

“Just picture that 8-year-old boy who wanted 

to be a park ranger and all his dreams 

coming true all at one time.”

But he adds that his career overall has 

been something of a dream.

“Teaching is what I love to do; it is one of 

the things I’m most proud of. In looking back 

on my legacy it’s hoping to make the next 

generation of Corps Interpreters better. We 

touch lives, and I love that I get to do that.” 

—M.B.

Building 

Yellowstone

THE U.S. ARMY

had some early—and at first 

unplanned—involvement in 

Yellowstone National Park. 

Someone had to keep tourists 

under control when, shortly 

after it was established in 1872, 

they were found cooking in the 

hot springs, trampling geyser 

basins or grabbing petrified 

wood for souvenirs.

The army was sent in as part enforcement, part interpreters, and then in 1883, as road engineering experts. 

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers laid out the system of roads that in many cases exists today. That it was young 

lieutenant Hiram Chittenden from the Corps St. Paul District who became a key bridge between park preservation 

and public enjoyment makes the annual award given in his name especially fitting.

Chittenden was already nationally well known as an author, advocate, engineer and historian when he arrived 

without budget or staff at Yellowstone in 1891, still recovering from typhoid. The St. Paul District had since 1883 

been in charge of road construction, and his predecessor Captain Dan Kingman had already launched the layout 

of a road system that encouraged excellence (and kept dust away with a road sprinkling machine) and at the 

same time discouraged destruction of forest and native animals.

According to historic accounts, Chittenden laid out a road from Firehole River to the West Thumb of Yellowstone 

Lake with only two assistants, a hand level, and a five-foot stick prompting the superintendent of the time to call 

him: “zealous, untiring, and remarkably efficient.”

He also led opposition to an electric railroad through the park—and he did so by illustrating what visitors wanted 

and didn’t. In 1893, he conducted a public survey and sent 120 letters to former visitors across the country. He 

got 100 responses back, with comments overwhelmingly showing the main drawback to park enjoyment was 

the condition of the roads.

Later, using survey results and evidence of the growing importance of the park, he won a three -year appropriation equaling $750,000 back in 1902. According to a National Park Service history called “The Army Engineers and 

Yellowstone National Park,” his legacy was a system both practical and aesthetically pleasing, one that avoided 

monotonous stretches in favor of roads that emphasized the natural terrain and key points of interest. Chittenden 

would later write: “the greatest service which official authority could render to posterity was to maintain and 

transmit this possession as it came from the hand of Nature.”

Early Yellowstone construction

Early uniforms at Yellowstone influenced 

today's Army Corps ranger look.

Hiram H. Chittenden

Our Mississippi · Spring 2022 7
Their near disappearance was no permanent swan song; tens of thousands 

are trumpeting their comeback along the Upper Mississippi.

heir beauty has made for some of the 

world’s most enduring fairy tales. (Remember 

the ugly duckling who turned beautiful swan?)

But the legendary grace and presence of the 

trumpeter swan also contributed to its near extinction as European hunters exploited the snow-white 

skin and soft features for powder puffs, Victorian 

hats, quill pens, and meat. Ironically, even famed 

ornithologist John Jay Audubon preferred the 

especially long feather of this, America’s largest 

bird that flies, for his correspondence.

Now, the comeback story is also one for the 

storybooks. And it’s a tale told both by the tens 

of thousands of trumpeter swans you might 

spot along the Mississippi River flyway and the 

researchers looking to fill out the plot.

“They were extirpated in the Mississippi Flyway, 

and there were only a few in the lower 48 states, 

but the really cool part is they were never listed 

as endangered like the bald eagle. There was this 

grassroots effort to reestablish their population, 

people pulling together and working with agencies 

to find eggs, raise young and release them,” says 

Charlie Deutsch, refuge manager at a now favorite swan overwintering grounds, the Two Rivers 

National Wildlife Refuge in Brussels, Illinois. “A lot 

of times recovery is driven by federal regulations 

or the Endangered Species Act. This was done in a 

way that didn’t require that.”

Migrating to an Army Corps 

natural area

Deutsch saw the recovery story first-hand while 

working as the supervisory wildlife biologist at the 

Army Corps of Engineers’ Rivers Project Office in 

West Alton, Illinois. Some of those first swan pioneers, newly hatched in migration and U.S. nesting 

grounds in which they’d been completely eliminated, found their way to the Riverlands’ Migratory 

Bird Sanctuary. Located at the confluence of the 

Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, and managed for 

hundreds of acres of wetland habitat, Riverlands 

appealed to the offspring of swans relocated from 

Alaska and the Pacific Northwest.

“The winter of 1991/92, my first winter at 

Riverlands, we had five swans show up,” Deutsch 

said. “They swam right over to us and had neck 

collars on.”

Deutsch and his colleagues tracked down 

the researcher who had banded the birds in 

Wisconsin, one as excited as they were to see 

they’d made their way that far south on their 

own. The swans returned the next winter with a 

few friends. From there, the winter swan population grew exponentially as flocks from Minnesota 

and Iowa joined the party.

Today’s biggest threat to trumpeter swans is not 

hunting but lead poisoning and power lines. The 

Corps worked with a local power company that 

used helicopters to install diverters on power lines 

around the sanctuary. Over the years, the company 

has tracked mortality and installed more diverters 

as needed.

There’s a lot to celebrate about a Midwestern 

swan population that went from zero to upwards 

of 30,000, says David Wolfson, a PhD student at 

the University of Minnesota who is leading a large 

study of swan migration patterns, genetics and 

more.

“There’s a mission that’s been accomplished to 

get the birds back onto the landscape,” he said, 

“but we still have a lot to learn to better understand their behavior, habitat needs, and to be able 

to make the best planning decisions possible.”

Wolfson, who started the project in 2019, has 

banded 50 swans in Minnesota, outfitting them 

with a light plastic neck collar unit with a GPS 

transmitter and testing their blood for DNA and 

lead (something found in trace amounts in every 

swan tested). Collaborating wildlife agencies 

in Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Arkansas, 

and Manitoba have also banded an additional 60 

swans, expanding the study to cover the majority 

of the Midwestern breeding range.

Current technology allows the researchers to 

automatically download each swan’s location 

data daily, then to follow the swans throughout 

their lives to see where they migrate—and if so, 

how far. As a species, they’re partial migrants, 

some moving south during the winter, some (particularly in somewhat warmer states like Ohio and 

Iowa) staying put. Data may show that trends are 

tied to heredity, or maybe just to opportunity.

“What we didn’t anticipate is there are a lot 

of ways they can find open water and still stay 

The Trumpeter Swan

FROM TOP: Researcher David Wolfson holds a Trumpeter 

Swan, the largest waterfowl species native to North 

America. The swans can exceed 35 pounds, and that 

makes taking flight so tricky that they sound like horses 

galloping as they take off on a water runway of at least 

100 meters.

8 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mississippi Valley Division
up north,” he said. 

“There are rivers that 

don’t freeze downstream of dams and 

power plants, and a 

lot of gravel quarries 

keep open ponds. 

As long as they can 

get enough food, it’s 

advantageous to not have to fly too far from 

their breeding territory.”

Why is he (like legions of bird watchers) 

attracted to a species that today faces relatively few threats?

“They’re an apex bird, being so large,” he 

said. “They’re also long living (the oldest 

known swan was 32), smart, they accumulate 

memory and they’re very social. There’s a lot 

more going on, more than people realize at 

times. I’m trying to bring together a lot of different information that can hopefully fill in a 

lot more of the story.” —K.S

Rising chloride

levels detected in

Upper Mississippi 

River Basin

Look at any photo of a Minnesota winter 

roadway, and you won’t be surprised at 

this. Chlorides, including de-icers such 

as rock salt (sodium chloride), are accumulating in Minnesota lakes and river 

tributaries. While concentrations have 

not reached toxic levels in the upper 

Mississippi River, they are rising, said 

Brooke Asleson, watershed project 

manager at the Minnesota Pollution 

Control Agency.

“We are seeing chlorides in more water 

bodies, in some cases already above 

what it should be for our freshwater fish, 

amphibians and insects,” she said.

The Upper Mississippi River Basin 

Association this winter adopted a resolution calling on state and federal agencies 

to create more knowledge and public 

awareness of chloride pollution something easily introduced through runoff 

of road de-icers consisting of sodium 

chloride or calcium chloride. Softener 

treatments for hard water utilize calcium and magnesium chlorides, which 

leach into ground waters and streams. 

Agricultural fertilizers may carry chlorides of potassium, calcium, ammonium 

or magnesium. While some people may 

not taste a teaspoon of salt in five gallons of water, even this concentration is 

harmful to the plants and tiny organisms 

supporting the food chain as well as the 

eggs of fish and amphibians.

“Chlorides can kill the smallest macroinvertebrates at 230 mg/l, which we 

say is that one teaspoon in the bucket,” 

Asleson said. ”If those insects are no 

longer available, fish have to find new 

food and are not always successful. 

Chlorides also affect the ability of fish and 

amphibians to reproduce. Their eggs are 

soft and susceptible to absorbing chloride so fewer eggs will survive.”

Plants that absorb chlorides “eventually will not be able to take in water and 

nutrients,” she said. “Chloride is a permanent pollutant. It will remain with a water 

molecule forever.”

In Minnesota’s large rivers, including 

the Upper Mississippi, chloride levels have 

reached 50 to 80 mg/l, she said. That’s led 

the Pollution Control Agency to develop a 

“Smart Salting” program to train winter 

maintenance professionals in efficient 

practices. The agency encourages adoption of efficient water softeners that may 

reduce salt use from three bags of salt a 

month to four or five per year.

Recognition of fertilizers as a source of 

chlorides “is fairly new,” she said, adding, 

“We have just started conversations with 

the agricultural industry.” —R.S.

Charles Pendleton,

Owner and Curator, Vicksburg Civil War Museum, 

Vicksburg, Mississippi

“Originally, I was a big car collector. I went from collecting antique cars 

like Camaros and Chevelles to collecting guns. My goal was to collect 

one of every gun used in the Civil War. I haven’t achieved that yet, but 

I have one of the largest Civil War gun collections in this area. And then, 

about four years ago, I started collecting 

Civil War artifacts. My collection takes up 

quite a bit of space, and I didn’t realize how 

much I was adding to it. It was in the living 

room, stacked on the pool table like you 

would not believe, and it got to the point 

where my wife, Betty—we’ve been married 

31 years—just said enough is enough!

“But the thing that was really the driving force behind the museum was a letter 

that I purchased from a local antique shop. 

It was from a town about 30 miles from 

here called Fayette, and it talked about a 

Ella, a 7-year-old Negro girl. She was sold 

for $350, and I think it said she would be 

guaranteed to be a slave for life. It really 

caught my attention. I guess it was knowing that people were bought and sold. I 

mean, that’s the practice of slavery, but 

coming face to face with this document, 

it was different. I felt connected to it and I 

wanted other people to feel the same feeling I did.

“We opened here in downtown Vicksburg on May 17, 2021. I don’t know of any 

other private Black-owned Civil War museums, and doing something that’s never 

been done before, that’s a heavy burden 

to carry. The Civil War has always been a 

story that’s been told from a white perspective, but we try to tell it from a black 

perspective, including slavery. The nice 

thing is, we’re within walking distance 

from the docks, and I’d say 60 percent of 

our guests come from the river boats. I 

think that really helps spread word of our 

museum and message throughout the 

country, and the world.”

My MISSISSIPPI

MORE

Follow swan 

movements or help 

with the citizen 

science component 

of the study: 

trumpeterswan.

netlify.app

New Corps Tower helps in 

Migration Tracking

A major advancement in the tracking of 

migratory birds has come to the U.S. Army 

Corps of Engineers Rivers Project Office 

in the form of a new tower that sends 

information from transmitter tags back to 

a central database.

There are currently 1300 such Motus 

Wildlife Tracking System towers around the 

world, collecting data on tens of thousands 

of tagged birds, bats and even insects. Each 

tag transmits data on where the animal travels, how fast it moves between points, how 

long it stays in an area, and more.

The St. Louis District Rivers Project 

established its Motus tower, 25 feet tall 

with dual listening receiver and eight 

antennas, in December atop an office at 

the Riverlands Migratory Bird Sanctuary—

an ideal location along the central 

flyway—in conjunction with the Audubon 

Center at Riverlands, Missouri Department 

of Conservation, and a St. Louis Audubon 

office grant.. FOR MORE: MOTUS.ORG

With thousands of artifacts 

on display, there’s much to 

see at the Vicksburg Civil War 

Museum. Look for:

Secession Letters: At the 

beginning of the museum, look 

for letters drafted by 11 Southern states. The topic of slavery 

features heavily in them, as 

Pendleton notes, discrediting 

the idea that the Civil War 

wasn’t primarily about slavery.

Enslaved Person’s Cabin: 

Visitors can walk through a furnished wooden cabin, which was 

removed from a local farm and 

reassembled in the museum.

Enlistment Document: Many 

of the men who enlisted in the 

52nd United States Colored 

Infantry were unable to read 

and write, and simply marked 

an “X” in place of their names. 

“They were so vulnerable, they 

couldn’t even write their own 

name,” says Pendleton, “but 

they were so powerful that they 

were willing to fight for their 

freedom.” —J.G.

Visit the Vicksburg

Civil War Museum

Our Mississippi · Spring 2022 9
OUR MISSISSIPPI KIDS

Hunt for author’s signature 

brings new attention to 

Mark Twain’s Cave.

CINDY LOVELL credits her fourth-grade 

teacher Mr. Ronald Riese for her life’s career 

theme and a related obsession that led to an 

important recent discovery.

The teacher from her days at Newberry 

Elementary School in Etters, Pennsylvania, 

would read a chapter of a different book 

out loud every day. When he got to the 

famous fence whitewashing chapter of 

“The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” something struck close to home for the eldest 

girl of the family with younger siblings she 

never felt did their share of housework.

 “I thought, ‘I should be ashamed of 

myself !’ but I was so impressed that Tom 

Sawyer figured out how to get his friends to 

do his work for him!”

That moment jump-started a passion for 

the author’s works and life that led to jobs 

such as directing the Mark Twain Boyhood 

Home and Museum in Hannibal, Missouri, 

where Samuel Clemens (the author’s real 

name) lived from ages 4 to 7 (1839–1853). 

She had come to love the author and the 

places immortalized in his books. Among 

those was a cave that inspired tales of hidden treasure.

While author Twain is best known for his connection to the Mississippi 

River, this cave near its shores “offered mystery and adventure,” she says. 

“He had a big imagination and excellent memory.”

In “Tom Sawyer,” Twain wrote about a gang of pirates rumored to have 

left treasure in this cave, and he named landmarks, such as Aladdin’s Palace 

after favorite books like “The Arabian Nights.” For Lovell, as for generations 

of travelers, visiting the cave became as much an adventure quest as it was 

for Sam Clemens and his boyhood friends and fictional characters. She’d 

explore art on the walls and the signatures—some 250,000 of them throughout three miles of passageways. She found her own first name on the wall 

once, fortuitously just above the signature of “N. Rockwell” near the location 

artist Norman Rockwell made sketches for one of his paintings in 1935.

But for Lovell, the real treasure she sought was one signature in particular: that of the author himself.

She and her friend Linda Coleberd, whose late husband’s family owned 

the cave from 1923 until recently, frequently explored with flashlights. It was 

a widely known joke that any group she’d lead had to promise to hunt for 

the signature “Clemens.” After searching the cave’s walls on more than 100 

occasions, Lovell said she’d almost come to believe that perhaps he had never 

signed his own name simply because his family was too poor. In Clemens’ day, 

signing was typically done with candle smoke, and unlike many better-off 

friends, he couldn’t squander candles needed for more practical use at home.

Then, on July 26, 2019, Lovell went on a cave tour with a group of scholars who had come to town for the quadrennial Clemens Conference. They 

had just passed a one-time hideout of robber Jesse James when she caught 

a glimpse of something as a flashlight beam passed across the walls. She 

called to Linda saying, “I think I see Clemens!” She didn’t believe her eyes, 

but looked closer and saw the name in pencil—clear and recognizable as 

the signature she knew—distinct in the way other signatures appeared in 

smoke, pencil, paint or berry juice. (Pencils would have been easy to come 

by for a young boy who had to leave school when his father died to work as 

a typesetter to help support his family, she notes).

Experts later confirmed the authenticity of the signature and beyond that 

saw the initials S-A-M-L carved into the stone beneath. The news spread to 

so-called Twainiacs around the world, the cave set up a signature tour for 

those who had already explored but not yet seen the treasure, and Lovell 

focused on a continued quest: finding the signature of Tom Blankenship, 

the real child upon whom the character Huckleberry Finn was based. The 

cave, the boyhood home, and other places along the Mississippi that were 

frequented by the legendary author, remain Lovell’s favorite sites to visit in 

Hannibal.

“To me, those places were already sacred ground,” she said, “but the place 

where young Sam Clemens stood and signed his name in pencil on a cave 

wall was always the holy grail.” —K.S.

Mark the Twain

When Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) 

was learning how to pilot a steamboat, 

there were no buoys to guide him or 

locks and dams to help him navigate the 

changes in depth. He needed to know a 

hundred landmarks for every mile of the 

journey so he could know the shape of the 

river at night. Every point, stump, limb, ridge, 

rock, or snag had told him something about 

the river. He had to steer for the slack water, 

staying close first to one bank and then the 

other. To find slack water, he had to know the 

shape of the river so well he did not actually need 

to see the landmarks. He also had to know the 

depth of the river in all places. This depth was 

measured by the pilot’s leadsmen who constantly 

monitored the amount of water under the bow 

and stern of the boat.

 To determine if water was deep enough to 

navigate, they’d “Mark the Twain.” A leadman 

used a 30-foot-long weighted rope to measure 

distance to river bottom and would shout out 

what he’d measure. “Mark Twain” was the call 

made when the boat was in safe water of two 

fathoms or 12 feet. It’s no coincidence then 

that this former steamboat pilot chose the 

name Mark Twain for his pen name. SOURCE: 

OUR MISSISSIPPI TEACHER’S GUIDE

Color these steamboat coloring pages, 

available for free download at coloringtop.com/node/2078. While you color, 

imagine being the pilot’s leadsmen, 

measuring the water depth all along 

the journey.

BELOW: The labyrinth of 260 

passageways that inspired Mark 

Twain's famous “The Adventures 

of Tom Sawyer,” is open to the 

public, but there's a new holy grail 

inside thanks to a Twain historian 

and enthusiast who recently 

discovered the author's signature 

inside. Visitors can take a walking 

cave tour, watch a Mark Twain 

reenactor, take an adventure 

tour requiring crawling and headlamps, camp on site and more.

Book a cave tour: 

marktwaincave.com

Mark Twain 

was here

10 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mississippi Valley Division
OUR MISSISSIPPI TRAVEL

Tours showcase ‘risk v. reward’

“NOW, IMAGINE A 20-FOOT WALL OF WATER,”

says Barbara Johnson, founder of The Great Delta Tour 

Company, as she looks out across seawater that is barely 

higher than the land she’s standing upon. Her words conjure 

up a sense of vulnerability.

Nothing nearby is twenty feet tall, perhaps a couple of 

stilt houses in the distance. A memorial to the St. Bernard 

parish victims of Hurricane Katrina stands nearby. But that 

infamous storm surge is but one player in a larger story showcased on a most unusual tour that’s so popular that a new 

cruise line even offers it as a New Orleans day trip option.

Thanks to various factors, environmental and human, one 

million acres (25%) of the Delta’s wetlands, forests, and barrier islands have been lost since 1932. That’s a football field 

every 100 minutes. Yet residents and visitors persist—and for 

many important reasons.

Johnson’s mission with the new tours is to champion the 

efforts to rebuild and protect the land, and also emphasize the 

sense of fun and pride that’s made living here worth the risk 

to generations from a melting pot of cultures and lifestyles.

The work of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is evidenced 

as tourgoers pass through massive gates in a U.S. Army Corps 

of Engineers floodwall, which connects further on with the 

“Great Wall of Louisiana,” a 1.8-mile concrete-and-steel wall. 

The barrier stands 26 feet above sea level to combat future 

storm surge coming in from the Gulf. Completed in 2013 at 

a cost of $1.3 billion, it is the largest civil-works, design-construction project in the history of the Corps. That “fortress,” as 

she calls it, protects those tourgoers will later meet.

At lunch, far from Bourbon Street, Johnson’s tour participants line up with locals at a roadside restaurant for fried 

local seafood po’boys or crawfish on platters in large scoopfuls. The next stop, along a canal in the fishing village of 

Yscloskey, finds a pod of pelicans gathered on shore to watch 

workers haul oysters, shrimp, and crab off the boats. They 

work under metal-roofed pavilions still showing storm scars 

they can name like temperamental neighbors. “That was 

Zeta. This was Ida.”

Don Robin, an oyster harvester here for 50 years, is part 

of the fifth generation of the Isleños culture, descended, as 

40% of residents in the parish are, from Canary Islanders who 

settled here in 1778–1783. Robin thrusts a cane pole into the 

water to demonstrate how to find oysters, chats about the 

challenges of his work and the delta environment, and grills 

some of his tasty harvest for his guests.

Travelers also learn about land restoration efforts: the 

National Guard using Black Hawk helicopters to airdrop old 

Christmas trees into Bayou Sauvage to trap silt and create 

habitat. Mud from the bottom of Lake Borgne is pumped up 

to build back coastline.

While history here is fascinating, there’s no substitute for 

meeting the folks who accept the risks and challenges of living 

in an environment susceptible to hurricanes and 

flooding. In Sandy Beach, new buildings stand on 

20-foot stilts, the minimum height since Katrina. 

Johnson calls life here an interesting dance.

“There’s the tension between risk and reward 

or risk and resources,” she says. “This is too good, 

the richness of this nature and what it offers, ‘I’m 

willing to take a risk to invest and live here. It 

doesn’t get any better.’”

The wildlife refuges and abundant birdlife 

are draws in themselves, but it’s a love for perpetuating that “dance” that Johnson hopes to 

pass along. Raising awareness gets more people 

engaged in projects like coastal plantings, and 

the tourism dollars supplement incomes.

“I really think New Orleans can be a global 

destination where we celebrate nature, ecotourism, and stewardship of our environment,” she 

says. But don’t just take her word for it; let the 

locals convince you. —K.R.

TOURS SHOWCASE DELTA CULTURE

Cajun Cooking Lessons with 

Spuddy Facheaux are all about 

the fun—and Spuddy’s stories of 

life and food spun in his authentic 

accent—that you’ll want to volunteer to stir the roux, and to taste 

all. CAJUNCOOKINGEXPERIENCE.COM

Go with Cajun Man’s Swamp 

Tours and Adventures (Captailn 

Billy), and you’ll float to cajun tunes 

and swamp tales through cyprus 

swamps and bayous, past graceful birds and 

ancient-looking 

gators.

Cruise to the 

sounds of New 

Orleans jazz

with dinner 

options on the 

Steamboat Natchez or newer City 

of New Orleans—and be so glad 

you did. CAJUNMANADVENTURES.COM

Even cocktails come with colorful 

tales, as you’ll learn at the Sazarac 

House: Museum of the Cocktail

in New Orleans with its interactive 

exhibits, virtual 

reality and real 

tastings; this 

spirit is credited 

to a Creole 

apothecary who 

emigrated from 

the West Indies 

and set up shop in the early 19th 

century. SAZARACHOUSE.COM

And a tour of the 1811 Kid Ory 

Historic House shares two 

noteworthy history chapters: 

the 1811 rebellion of enslaved 

people and the dawn of jazz. 

1811KIDORYHISTORYHOUSE.COM

New scan-and-pay 

system debuts at 

some Corps rec areas

Want to camp at certain U.S. Army 

Corps of Engineers campgrounds 

or use a boating ramp? You may 

need your smart phone.

In partnership with Recreation.

gov, a few U.S. Army Corps of 

Engineers recreation sites including some in the Rock Island and 

Vicksburg districts are testing a 

new scan and pay method.

The Vicksburg District 

launched a pilot at Lake Ouachita 

and Lake Greeson in 2020 as a 

way to minimize contact between 

guests and rangers during the 

height of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The district is continuing to use 

the QR code-based feature of the 

Recreation.gov mobile app as the 

way visitors need to pay for sites 

at the Bear Creek, Arrowhead 

Point and Star of the West recreation areas.

In the Rock Island District, 

Bulger’s Hollow, Cattail Slough, 

Clark’s Ferry and Shady Creek 

recreation areas are using the 

self-registration process.

Lake Ouachita has discontinued the use, temporarily, after 

a pilot project found that while 

it was for the most part successful, it was troublesome for 

customers with outdated smart 

phones and for those who didn’t 

realize they needed to download 

the Recreation.gov app before 

attempting to use the new pay 

system.

Note: Scan and pay does not allow 

reservations, and visitors must be 

physically present. The QR code 

and confirmation number serves as 

proof of purchase during the stay.

Book a Delta Discovery tour or private 

birding trip: thegreatdeltatours.com

Crawfish boils let tour-goers 

taste the culture.

The bayou Mississippi 

Meanders, 

a 70-foot 

glass 

bridge

Our Mississippi · Spring 2022 11
Happy Birthday,

St. Louis District!

The “heart” of the Mississippi Valley 

Division—the St. Louis District—is 

celebrating 150 years of helping 

navigation and the environment at 

the crossroads of three major river 

systems: the Illinois, Mississippi and 

Missouri. The roots of the 28,000 

square mile district date back to 1937, 

when a young lieutenant was sent to 

study navigation-related harbor problems. The 

mission grew when Congress recognized the relationship between navigation and flood control. Today, the district focuses on navigation, flood control, environmental 

restoration, hydropower and recreation with its network of locks and dams, channel improvement structures, wetland 

improvement projetcs and diversity of wildlife habitat. It even operates the National Great Rivers Museum in Alton, 

Ill. Fun facts:

• More than 6,700 acres of habitat are being improved in current district construction projects

• The district monitors and protects more than 2,800 historic property sites

• The District’s Mandatory Center of Expertise for the Curation and Management of Archaeological Collections 

provides expertise in curating collections, mass graves investigations, forensic support to government agencies and more.

• Lt. Robert E. Lee arrived to restore and protect the harbor in 1837; construction began on Lock and Dam 26 in 

1934.

Through 1886, the primary mission of the St. Louis Engineer Office was to improve navigation on the Mississippi 

by maintaining an eight-foot channel on the Middle Mississippi through permanent improvements – dams to close 

chutes, dikes and jetties to contract the channel, hurdles to build up the banks, and revetment to protect the banks. 

From 1875 to 1881, the district protected banks with woven willow or cottonwood mattresses.

More than 100 million tons of commodities annually pass through the Port of St. Louis, saving more than $1 billion 

in transportation shipping costs.

Commission trip a success

The Mississippi River Commission traveled 

on board the Motor Vessel MISSISSIPPI

throughout early April on the annual spring 

high-water tour, holding public meetings 

in Caruthersville, Missouri, Memphis, 

Tennessee, Greenville, Mississippi and Baton 

Rouge, Louisiana.

They gathered public testimony and 

answered questions but also toured sites 

initiating cleanups, unveiling floodwalls, planning new lock construction and more. Gen. 

Diana Holland, the Mississippi Valley Division 

Commanding General and Mississippi River 

Commission President, chaired the meetings.

“The Commission has the opportunity to 

see the condition of the river, from the same 

vantage point as the people who live and 

work in this watershed,” she said. “Likewise, 

those citizens who depend on the river and 

who are protected from flooding by the 

Mississippi River and Tributaries project 

can express their concerns directly to the 

federal government, unfiltered, through the 

Commission. It is democracy in action.”

PRSRT STD

U.S. POSTAGE

PAID

GREENVILLE, MI

PERMIT NO. 338

US Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul

PM-E Bluhm

180 East Fifth Street, Suite 700

St. Paul, MN 55101

Send story ideas to editor@ourmississippi.net

To subscribe to our e-edition, read past editions and find river-related education materials, 

visit https://www.mvd.usace.army.mil/Library/Publications/Our-Mississippi/

Contributors this issue:

EDITOR/

LEAD WRITER

Kim Schneider

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Diane Kolak

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Michael Billeaudeaux

Debra Dietzman

Jill Gleeson

Kevin Revolinski

Richard Stoff

Mailing list changes:

Kim Schneider, 231.357.1631

To read online:

https://www.mvd.usace.army.mil/Media/

Publications/Our-Mississippi/

Click “Subscribe here” to subscribe via email.

Insiyaa Ahmed, St. Louis, Mo. 

636.899.0076

Vanessa Alberto, St. Paul, Minn. 

651.290.5388

Elizabeth Burks, Memphis, Tenn. 

901.544.0761

Katelynn Dearth, St. Louis, Mo. 

636.899.0086

Angie Freyermuth, Rock Island, Ill. 

309.794.5341

Questions or Comments:

U.S.A.C.E. REGIONAL OUTREACH SPECIALISTS