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Keep These Jaws Out of Wisconsin
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Marlin Levison/AP
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While the midwestern water world focuses on if, or when, Asian carp might jump the Corps of Engineers' electric fence in the Chicago canal system that for now has kept them out of Lake Michigan, the carp are sneaking into the back door of Wisconsin via the Mississippi River -- a back door that's wide open and unprotected. The River Alliance is asking DNR secretary Cathy Stepp if Wisconsin is mobilizing efforts equal to those of our neighbor state of Minnesota. |
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Silence of the Laws That Protect The Great Lakes
 Our friend the River Rat was enjoying an August afternoon on the southern shore of Lake Michigan, near the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, with the rat-letts (offspring), who commented on how clear the water was, despite the fact the beach they were lounging on was right next door to heavily-industrialized Gary/Hammond/Chicago.
Rat hated to inform the young rats that in this particular instance, such clear water was probably a bad thing. Lake Michigan is being scrubbed sterile by trillions of quagga mussels, an invasive critter that devours the tiny plankton that the rest of this Great Lake's food system depends on. Elsewhere on the Lake Michigan shore, the clarity caused by the quaggas only encourages another scourge -- cladophora, a stringy variety of algae that creates a great green stinky mass when it washes up on shore.
But leave it to Congress to not only ignore how these invasives are destroying the Great Lakes, but try to pass a law that Rat officially dubs the Free Passport for Invasive Creatures Act. The proposed law would exempt ballast water(that's the water ships take in and dump out of their hulls to balance their loads) from pollution regulation, and makes it illegal for states to have tougher standards than federal ones.
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Invasion of the Stream Bank Snatchers
 Japanese hops, an invasive annual, shallow-rooted vine, is widespread in the Grant and Platte River watersheds in Grant County. Clearly, flowing water is the primary dispersing agent. As it spreads down river and stream corridors, it also crawls up onto the banks, encroaching into pastures, croplands, and barnyards. Recently several new populations have been discovered in tributaries of the Mississippi River and in the Lower Wisconsin River watershed in northern Grant County and Crawford County. The most recent discovery is a large infestation on Pleasant Valley Creek, a tributary of the Fennimore Branch of the Blue River. It appears that the hops were introduced to the watershed in hay bales transported there for cattle feed. The hops-laced bales sat at the watershed divide and hence have spread the four-mile length of the valley to the confluence of Pleasant Valley and Fennimore Branch and beyond, to the Blue River. If it continues to spread downstream with spring flows, it will eventually end up in the Lower Wisconsin State Riverway. Take a look at this map (with photographs) of the infestation.
The River Alliance, Wisconsin DNR and our many partners will continue to raise awareness and seek management alternatives. We fear that Japanese hops may be more widespread than we once thought. If you find additional populations of Japanese hops, please contact Kelly Kearns ( Kelly.Kearns@wisconsin.gov).
Article originally submitted to Invasive Plant Association of Wisonsin's newsletter, PooP (Plants out of Place)
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Help Us Prevent a Nightmare on Wilson Street
 Is there anything scarier than a huge pile of unstuffed letters? Yes...a huge pile of unstuffed, unsealed and unstamped letters. AAAAHHH!!! That's why we need your help. Come to the River Alliance offices (306 East Wilson Street, Suite #2W Madison, WI) at 6pm on Thursday November 3 and help us beat back this maliciously unassembled postal horde. You'll help us fight to save Wisconsin's rivers from scary threats (and there are a lot of those right now), and we'll serve you free pizza and sodey pop.
Interested? Then send an email to Dave Pausch (dpausch@wisconsinrivers.org) and let him know you're coming and if you're bringing friends (bringing friends is a encouraged; bringing garlic, wooden stakes and holy relics is probably overkill...). We promise you'll be out of here by the witching hour...or 9 o'clock, whichever comes first.
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The Amity-bill Horror
On October 26, a large group of concerned citizens attended a hearing for what the senator who sponsored the legislation described as "Not a mining bill." 
We beg to differ. Click here to read why this bill has the potential to devastate the beautiful Penokee Hills, known as the Alps of Wisconsin. |
A Spooky Story Goblins and ghosts and a mining bill masquerading as a jobs bill - it is going to be a very scary Halloween indeed. Check out the cartoon video for a preview... (but you might want to keep the lights on!) |
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Do you think we're a real Scream?
There's more where that came from. Friend us on Facebook.
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Help the River Alliance keep saving rivers from vampires, werewolves, polluters and other evil beings.
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