Island restoration project gets support from ports

ECOSYSTEMS AND ECOTOURISM

The reason we got interested in it is because our focus at the Corn Belt Ports is to bring more investment into the region. Ecosystem restoration is clearly one of those investments.”

Robert Sinkler, CBPA Executive Director

LEE COUNTY – An area port authority group is getting behind a decade-long island restoration project in Pool 19.
The Corn Belt Port Authority out of Hampton, Ill, has jumped behind the project and is trying to help secure $2.2 million in non-federal funding for the 41-acre island restoration plan in Lee County.
Dr. Anshu Singh, director of sustainability and conservancy with the CBPA, said Pool 19 has been degrading for more than a century going back to 1913 when the lock-and-dam system was built south of the pool in Keokuk.
She said area nature conservancies, the Department of Natural Resources, and Ducks Unlimited have been trying to get a restoration project going in the county for a long time.
Jim Knoll, an outdoor enthusiast in the area, started the ball rolling in earnest about 10 years ago and started working political and economic connections to get something going in an effort to restore ecosystems and the tourism that would follow.
Since that time, Lee County Conservation has been connecting the dots trying to get something going with the Army Corps of Engineers and other conservation advocacy groups, but didn’t have the budget to fund what will likely be just under $8 million, nor did they have the non-federal match that the project would require.
The plan is to bring dredged material into Lee County and rebuild an island structure with some rock formations that would lead to increased river flow and create habitat for migrating birds, fish, and other wildlife. The pool used to have several islands before the backfilling of the pool due to the damming of the river at Keokuk. This has caused the water to rise above the island level and the river current to slow.
“The reason we got interested in it is because our focus at the Corn Belt Ports is to bring more investment into the region. Ecosystem restoration is clearly one of those investments,” said Bob Sinkler, Executive Director for CBPA.
"The CBPA is one of the few port organizations in the country with a director of sustainability and conservation,” Singh said.
“So my job is to have more ecosystem restoration projects on the upper Mississippi River also on the Illinois river because Corn Belt Port covers both.”
Singh said Pool 19 has been “impounded” longer than any other pool on the upper Mississippi and has been quietly degrading because of that long-term impoundment.
The project to resurrect some island structures with dredged material can be compared to how the city of Fort Madison used dredged material from the marina to build up the Riverfront Park out of the 500-year flood plain, except on a more grand scale. Dredge material would be shipping into the area via the river and pumped onto submerged islands to help bring them back to life.
The Army Corp and U.S. Fish and Wildlife did a feasibility study after attention was brought to the project idea, and Sinkler said now most of the papers have been signed and memorandums of understanding have been approved. Lee County Conservation board approved executing an MOU with the Iowa Association of Port Authorities. The MOU outlines each parties responsibilities, including the donation of the land to the project by LCCD, and the fundraising responsibilities of the port authorities.
Once these are finalized at the Conservation Board meeting on April 14, then fundraising can start for the $2.2 million in non-federal match. When those funds have been raised, the federal dollars making up the rest of the project will be released through the Army Corp to start the project.
Sinkler said they had hopes of being in the water in Pool 19 next year, but that will now depend on how long it takes to raise the funds.
Singh said there are multiple advocacy groups involved and they will help raise funds, but for the first time that she can remember, a port authority is going to use a GoFundMe page to see if that can help raise some of the funds needed for the project.
According to GoFundMe, there is a 2.9% + .30 fee assessed to each transaction, so that would impact funds donated through that vehicle. Singh said it may be the first time in the country that GoFundMe is used to raise funds for a port project.
The project is the first restoration project of this type in the Rock Island district so Sinkler said he hopes that it's the start of something bigger for the area and more projects of this type follow.