Same Old Same Old

Tags

Department of Natural Resources, economic development, EPA, Lake of the Ozarks, pollution, water

The Lake of the Ozarks, satellite view.

I’ve talked a lot about books on this blog, but one I haven’t mentioned yet is Traci Angel’s The Scars of Project 459: The Environmental Story of the Lake of the Ozarks. I’m not especially fond of the book; I think the title promises more than the book delivers, and it’s written in a choppy-sentence, newspaper-journalism style that wears me out after a while. (If you want a deeper, more comprehensive account of the lake’s origins, I recommend Damming the Osage, which I have written about before.) But whatever its perceived deficiencies, the book offers a great glimpse into one of the enduring truths of the lake: it’s all about the money.

The Lake of the Ozarks is above all else a developer’s lake, designed and built to extract as much possible money from all conceivable uses. For all their garish commercialism, even Table Rock, Beaver, and the other big Ozark lakes have an ostensible “flood control” justification, and once in a while that justification actually emerges. But the Lake of the Ozarks doesn’t even have that. It’s a commercial enterprise, start to finish.

One of the stories told in The Scars of Project 459 is the notorious “goose poop” incident of 2009, and the book is worth reading just for that. The sequence of events runs roughly like this: Department of Natural Resources routine testing reveals high E. coli levels near the public beaches of the park, right before a major holiday weekend. DNR sits on the report until the holiday weekend is over, then releases it. Howls from environmentalists and public health advocates over the suspicious timing of the report’s delay and release brings the governor at the time (Jay Nixon) down to the lake to announce a major cleanup campaign. Howls from local businesses lead to a new suspect in the E. coli reading: a flock of geese that had been loitering suspiciously in the area and a coincidental heavy rainfalll that had surely, surely, caused the spike in contamination. Heads roll at the DNR. Winter comes, the incident is more or less forgotten, and no comprehensive effort to manage the lake’s water quality takes place. A comprehensive effort, you see, would require two things that are anathema to the powers-that-be around the lake: the expenditure of money for a public good, and cooperation among the four counties that comprise its local government.

The lake watershed is indeed a complex system, and no single source of contamination can be blamed for all its environmental ills. A 2014 report from the U.S. Geological Survey and Missouri DNR about surveys conducted in later years didn’t exonerate the geese, but it also took notice of contamination from local sewage treatment facilities during the frequent times that rainfall causes overflows of those facilities, household septic systems that have outlived their effectiveness, and leaking septic pits from sources around the lake, including (ironically enough) one in the state park itself. If all those episodes teach us anything, it’s that understanding the lake’s water quality requires science, and lots of it.

Which is why it’s so dispiriting to read the news today and see the usual passel of Missouri congresspeople pressuring the EPA to take the Lake of the Ozarks and Truman Reservoir off its list of “impaired” waterways, where they were placed in November. The EPA’s list of impaired waterways included 481 bodies of water that both the state and the feds agreed were impaired, which is troubling enough. The state did not include the two big lakes and 38 other Missouri water bodies on its list, but the EPA disagreed with that decision, bringing the overall number up to 521. (On the semi-bright side, the two agencies agreed to remove 44 bodies of water from the list.)

So the state and the feds are in disagreement over the science on about eight percent of the total listings. So why are the congresspeople, none of them scientists or even remotely interested in science as far as I can tell, so worked up? A passage in the AP story gives the clue. “The letter said the impaired designations ‘would have significant impacts on families, landowners, small businesses,’ and on the state’s economy. . . . For example, the listing could force local governments to update wastewater facilities, potentially costing them millions of dollars, [Congressman Blaine] Luetkemeyer’s spokeswoman Georgeanna Sullivan said.”

Good heavens! Updating their wastewater facilities! What horrors. [Sorry for the sarcasm here.]

The congresspeople’s letter also says that fish kills at the lakes “were not verified by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources or the Missouri Department of Conservation.” Notice that it doesn’t deny that the fish kills occurred, which can easily be determined by looking at local news reports. Now again, the science behind fish kills is complicated; sometimes they occur simply through seasonal causes, and other times there are human-related causes. But the disingenuous phrasing of the letter reveals a desire to mislead, to cast doubt, where none needs to exist.

The more things change, as they say, the more they remain the same. Go to the lake and enjoy yourself, and if the water smells a little funny or looks a little green, don’t worry. It’ll wash on downstream eventually.

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Favorite Ozarks Places – 17

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caves, favorite_places, Ha Ha Tonka, history, karst topography, Lake of the Ozarks, springs

Ha Ha Tonka Spring

I generally avoid anything having to do with the Lake of the Ozarks, because it is so garish, messy, and utterly overcommercialized. But I have to admit that there are some beautiful scenic areas in that region, despite the overgrown forest of advertising signs that often obscures it.

One of those areas is Ha Ha Tonka, now a state park. Ha Ha Tonka was given its name by an early promoter who claimed that it was an Osage phrase that meant “laughing waters,” and if you believe that I’ve got a bridge to sell you. What it is, though, is a magnificent spring (pictured above) and a number of geologic features that are truly memorable.

It’s a wonderful place to see karst topography in its many forms. Water flowing through dolomite, with a sandstone overlay, has created a natural bridge (pictured below) and a deep chasm that connects the spring to the lake below. Before the lake, the spring fed the Niangua River, but nowadays that’s all beneath the surface. The remnants of a mill dam are still present, so one can easily imagine the community that existed there in the 19th and early 20th century.

The natural bridge at Ha Ha Tonka

The chasm is quite spectacular, similar to Grand Gulf farther south, and hiking trails wind through it in all directions. I wouldn’t recommend some of the trails for casual hikers; the rocky, rugged terrain makes for a tough clamber in some places. But there’s a paved path from the lake that nearly reaches the spring, until the rocks close in.

Most of the park’s visitors, though, visit the ruins of a big old house that overlooks the chasm from the north side. This mansion, optimistically referred to as a “castle” by the parks people, was begun in 1905 by a rich guy from Kansas City. He was killed in a car wreck the following year, but his sons continued with the construction of the house, which probably did have the best view in Missouri. It burned in 1942. I get the impression that the ruins, which the state parks people have stabilized, are preserved to maintain their current picturesque level of ruination. After all, it would lessen their attraction if they just went ahead and fell down.

Ha Ha Tonka spring, Castle in distance

As for myself, I’ve never been much interested in the opulent structures built by rich people, ruined or otherwise. The views from up there are excellent, though. Before the state obtained the property, Ha Ha Tonka was run as a private tourist attraction, with all kinds of fanciful names for the geographic features. The creation of the lake inundated some of those features, sparking a long legal battle between the owners and the electric company. The story of Ha Ha Tonka, both the geologic story and the story of the various humans fighting to profit from it, is told in excellent detail in Leland and Crystal Payton’s Damming the Osage.

Damming the Osage

Tags

art, Bagnell Dam, books, history, Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri, nature, Osage, Ozarks, Paytons, photography, Truman Dam

I bought my copy of Damming the Osage almost as soon as I heard it was available, and I’ve been reading at it ever since. It’s not the sort of book that compels you to finish it in a single sitting. In fact, I almost feel that each of the chapters is better read in isolation, because it’s a big book that tries to manage a total picture of the Osage River valley, from prehistory to the present day, with a focus on the two massive dam projects (Bagnell and Truman) that have permanently altered the natural and human environment of that part of the Ozarks.

I learned an immense amount from this book. There are vignettes in it about unique geographical features that made me want immediately to jump in the car and drive to see. The history of the sordid financial machinations that led to the building of Bagnell Dam, and the political machinations that led to the building of Truman Dam, should serve as a cautionary tale for anyone who steps into the swirling waters of development politics. I will be pulling this book from my shelf to look up a fact or a photo for years to come.

That being said, I didn’t find it completely satisfying. It opts for more photos rather than fewer (both historical images and Payton’s own work), and as a result a lot of them are fairly small. I would have preferred larger editing of the photos for display at the cost of leaving out some of the redundant ones. Some of the photos take up a whole page, and the impact of those big ones is rewarding. I have the same complaint about the text. This is an ambitious book, and in its ambition sometimes feels as though it’s trying to cram in every last detail and insight at the expense of narrative flow. The typeface looks like Helvetica medium to me (didn’t look it up to be certain, sorry), and more than 300 pages of that typeface is an invitation to eyestrain.

All in all, though, it’s a wonderful addition to my Ozarkiana shelf. The Paytons have amassed a remarkable collection of historical images such as advertising posters, postcards, and the like, and they put them to excellent use here.

By odd coincidence, a copy of another classic Ozarks river book–Oliver Schuchard and Steve Kohler’s Two Ozark Rivers–showed up on my doorstep last night, and I’ll give some thoughts about it in a later post. In fact, I think I’ll start a new series of posts to go along with my “Favorite Ozarks People – Places – Images” series, of reflections on Ozarks books. Consider this No. 1 in that series.

I definitely recommend this book. You can order it here: http://www.dammingtheosage.com/