Mississippi River Wild along with the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Minnesota and Wisconsin DNRs will offer boat tours of the $9,500,000 island building project currently underway just south of
Brownsville,
Minn. The tours will start at 5 P.M. on Tuesday, Aug. 19 at the lower landing at
Wildcat
Park, 1/2 mile south of
Brownsville.
Tours will last about 45 minutes and will allow viewers to see, up close, the mammoth scale of this project. DNR, COE, and USFWS personnel will be on hand to answer questions and provide detail. The tours are free to the public.
Since the creation of Lock and Dam No. 8 in 1937, many of the natural islands in this area eroded and disappeared. Island loss allows more wind and wave action in the backwaters, keeping sediment suspended (turbidity). The suspended sediment in turn makes it difficult for sunlight to penetrate the water and reach aquatic plants. All this results in the loss of valuable aquatic plant beds that migrating waterfowl and fish use for food and cover.
To restore this valuable habitat, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey,
Minnesota and Wisconsin Departments of Natural Resources, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, and the public planned and designed this island construction project as a cooperative effort.
The objectives of the project are:
· Increase and maintain quality dabbling and diving duck habitat
· Create habitat for neotropical migrants and shorebirds
· Create turtle nesting habitat
· Create backwater fish overwintering habitat
· Enhance backwater fish spawning and summer habitat
· Enhance channel habitat for riverine fish and mussels
· Increase emergent, submersed and floating leaved aquatic vegetation
Twelve islands will be constructed with dredged material from Schnick’s Bay and the Above Brownsville placement site (
Crater
Island). To prevent the new islands from eroding, rock will be placed along sections of shoreline and vegetation will be planted. These new islands will maintain and help reestablish aquatic plant beds and deepwater habitat. Migratory waterfowl, shorebirds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and mammals such as beaver, mink, and otter will benefit from this project.