{"id":10704,"date":"2016-02-26T07:40:50","date_gmt":"2016-02-26T14:40:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=10704"},"modified":"2016-02-26T09:30:25","modified_gmt":"2016-02-26T16:30:25","slug":"at-projects-end-a-close-look-at-the-yellowstone-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2016\/02\/at-projects-end-a-close-look-at-the-yellowstone-river\/","title":{"rendered":"At project’s end, a close look at the Yellowstone River"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Flow\"<\/a>

David Crisp\/Last Best News<\/p>

Visitors look at a work by Billings artist Sherri Cornett in the Northcutt Steele Gallery at MSU Billings. Her work was up as part of the “Flow” project.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Yellowstone River is \u201cone of the most glorious rivers I\u2019ve ever worked on,\u201d a symposium speaker said in Billings on\u00a0Thursday, but he warned that he has learned through study that \u201cit wasn\u2019t the pristine river that some people thought it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warren Kellogg, chairman of the Technical Advisory Group for the Yellowstone River Cumulative Effects Analysis, was speaking at the Voices of the River Symposium and Community Conversation at Montana State University Billings. The symposium was part of the capstone event for \u201cFlow,\u201d an interactive exhibition and community project that began in November.<\/p>\n

Kellogg and other panelists said that the Yellowstone River remains in relatively good condition, but it needs to be maintained and improved to protect it for future generations.<\/p>\n

Among the problems:<\/p>\n

\u2666 Rip-rap and other \u201cbank armor\u201d cover some 136 miles of the river\u2019s 670 miles, contributing to flooding farther downstream and damaging riparian habitat needed for a healthy ecosystem. Kellogg said that 7,000 acres of riparian forest has been lost along the Yellowstone since 1950.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you rip-rap the river,\u201d said one of more than 300 people interviewed for the Cumulative Effects Analysis, \u201cyou get a series of jagged turns, big holes and no ripples, no runs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2666 Increased construction and population growth along the river heighten effects of human activity and pollution. Kayhan Ostavar of the Yellowstone River Research Center at Rocky Mountain College said students and community members pick up 7,000 pounds of trash on the Yellowstone in their annual river cleanup the second week of September.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>\u2666 Birds, wildlife and fish are threatened by changes in the river and by pollution. Ostavar said that the three most endangered species by changes in the river are the pallid sturgeon, piping plovers and the least tern. In addition, bank swallows, which need open, eroded banks to build nests, are listed as threatened in California and Ontario.<\/p>\n

\u2666 Major projects, such as the Yellowtail Dam, have long-term effects on the Yellowstone River and its tributaries.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have yet to figure out how we\u2019re going to face some of these big problems,\u201d said Burt Williams, a member of the Technical Advisory Group for the cumulative analysis.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, he said, small changes can make a big difference. The Yellowstone, for example, has 56 species of fish, the most of any Montana river. But the Tongue River, which flows into the Yellowstone, was down to 19 species by 2005. The reason was an irrigation dam, in place since 1885, that allowed fish to swim out of the Tongue into the Yellowstone but not the other way.<\/p>\n

As soon as a bypass channel was added a few years ago, fish began repopulating the Tongue River, he said.<\/p>\n

\u2666 Invasive species, such as the Russian olive tree and noxious weeds, threaten the natural river ecosystem.<\/p>\n

The Cumulative Effects Analysis was spurred by flooding in 1996-97 that caused numerous landowners along the river to seek permits to protect their land along the riverbank. While the effects of a single landowner seeking a single permit may be small, the long-term effects of numerous permits were uncertain.<\/p>\n

Now the Cumulative Effects Analysis has produced 340 pages of analysis and 11 recommended practices backed by 1,500 pages of scientific documentation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t have the science,\u201d Kellogg said, \u201cthey won\u2019t listen to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even with the science, opposition and disagreement can slow progress on preserving the river. As one Yellowstone County civic leader interviewed for the project put it, \u201cDo you want me to come in and tell you what you can do with your 160 acres?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Youth\"<\/a>

David Crisp\/Last Best News<\/p>

Works by students were included in the Youth Outreach Project portion of the exhibition.<\/p><\/div>\n

Carrie La Seur, an environmental lawyer for Plains Justice, said that a legal guardian for the river may be needed to protect its rights as a living thing. Those include the rights to remain clean, to flow freely, to meander and to follow its own natural rhythms.<\/p>\n

The guardian would advocate for the river at public hearings and legal proceedings, she said. Identifying the river\u2019s rights is the easy part, she said. \u201cWhat\u2019s harder is to defend what\u2019s right in the political brawl.\u201d<\/p>\n

The goal should be to ensure that the river remains intact for those who live seven generations from now, La Seur said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a step toward being good ancestors,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Williams said the current state of the river is a \u201cmixed bag.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA pallid sturgeon would say it\u2019s in pretty bad shape,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Panelists agreed that the key was protecting the river for the future.<\/p>\n

Susan Gilbertz, director of the environmental studies program at MSU Billings, summed it up with a quotation from a Glendive man interviewed for the project. He said that he grew up on the Mississippi River, often referred to as \u201cOld Man River.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis one here,\u201d he said, referring to the Yellowstone, \u201cis the prom queen.\u201d We all know, Gilbertz said, that being prom queen lasts only a fleeting moment.<\/p>\n

The \u201cFlow\u201d project also included works by Girl Scouts, Boys and Girls Club members and school students; an evening of poetry and jazz; a film screening of the documentary \u201cMixing Oil and Water\u201d; and an exhibition of works by Billings artist Sherri Cornett in the Northcutt Steele Gallery at MSU Billings.<\/p>\n

Cornett, who has roots in South Texas, said the project is part of her ongoing effort to combine art and social engagement. The goal is to bring the community together to find common ground on social issues.<\/p>\n

Her work, and that of other local artists involved in the \u201cFlow\u201d project, remain on display on the first floor of the Liberal Arts Building at MSU Billings through March 18.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Yellowstone River is \u201cone of the most glorious rivers I\u2019ve ever worked on,\u201d a symposium speaker said in Billings on\u00a0Thursday, but he warned that he has learned through study that \u201cit wasn\u2019t the pristine river that some people thought it was.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":10705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[3896,837,3900,3895,2748,3899,3898,3250,39,3897],"class_list":["post-10704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-burt-williams","tag-carrie-la-seur","tag-cumulative-effects-analysis","tag-kayhan-ostavar","tag-msu-billings","tag-sherri-cornett","tag-susan-gilbertz","tag-warren-kellogg","tag-yellowstone-river","tag-yellowtail-dam","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}