2024 Watershed Talks ~ Soil and Water Conservation
Iowa HUC 8 Watersheds and the Iowa population of each.
This monthly virtual series is a project of the Iowa Division of the Izaak Walton League of America, with rotating co-hosts from other Iowa Chapters. We feature guests for 30-40 minute presentations that shed daylight on good works done in Iowa watersheds. In this way we uplift our shared goals for cleaner water, a healthy environment, and kinder communities.
Watershed Talks ~ August 13, 2024
CO2 Pipeline Hazards and the Power of People—
How landowners unite in Iowa to protect their land and property rights from Hazardous CO2 pipelines.
Emma Schmit— Grassroots Organizer, Bold Alliance
Chris Henning— Greene County Community Organizer
Learn more about the latest plans for the hazardous carbon pipeline proposed by Summit Carbon Solutions. Emma Schmit, Director of the Pipeline Fighters Hub, alongside Greene County landowner and community organizer, Chris Henning, share insight and updates on the carbon capture pipeline threatening over 1,000 miles of land in Iowa.
They discuss the tenuous history of carbon pipelines, the hazards and negative impacts our soil and water may face, and how you can get involved in protecting our communities from risky carbon pipelines. The recent meetings in Greene and Guthrie Counties are highlighted.
Emma Schmit is the Director of the Pipeline Fighters Hub at Bold Alliance where she connects landowners and communities facing unwanted pipelines with legal, organizing, and technical resources. She has been involved in building resistance to Summit’s carbon capture project across the Midwest since 2021.
Chris Henning is a life-long Greene County landowner, farmer, and community organizer who represents many agricultural and conservation based organizations. She is an advocate for healthy soils and clean water and is currently working to protect landowners rights against unconstitutional taking by Summit’s hazardous CO2 pipeline. Chris serves as a board member of the Iowa Division of the Izaak Walton League.
Watershed Talks ~ July 9, 2024
Paddlers, Pollution, and Policy—
How citizens can get in involved to protect their favorite waterways for both recreation and public health.
Lynne Diebel— Author, Paddler, & Clean Water Advocate
Dan Haug— Water Quality Specialist, Prairie Rivers of Iowa
The Clean Water Act set a goal of achieving water quality that would protect recreation and aquatic life in the nation’s waters by 1983. Forty years later, rivers downstream of wastewater treatment plants are much improved, but still fall short of those goals. We’ll take a deep dive into two such streams in the Upper Mississippi River Watershed— Badfish Creek in Wisconsin and the South Skunk River in Iowa— to better understand how the Clean Water Act works, what isn’t working, and how citizens can get involved to protect their favorite paddling and fishing spots.
Lynne Diebel is the director of The Friends of Badfish Creek Watershed, a chapter of the Rock River Coalition, and has been paddling and studying the Badfish for 16 years. She is also the author of Paddling Northern Minnesota, Paddling Southern Minnesota (Trails Books), and Crossing the Driftless: A Canoe Trip Through a Midwestern Landscape (University of Wisconsin Press), among other books. While exploring the rivers that are characters in her books, Lynne and her husband Bob paddled almost four thousand miles of rivers together. Born and raised in Minnesota, Lynne has lived in Stoughton, Wisconsin since 1974, where she and Bob raised their four children.
Dan Haug has been the water quality specialist for Prairie Rivers of Iowa (an Ames-based non-profit) since 2017. In addition to working on watershed projects, environmental education, mapping, and water quality monitoring, he recently completed a series of 45 short videos about the Clean Water Act.
Watershed Talks ~ June 11, 2024
Aftermath of the Nishnabotna River Spill
How concerned citizens unite to protect the Nishnabotna River after one of Iowa’s largest fish kills.
Samantha Williams— Scientist, Clean Water Advocate
Joey Norris— Engineer, Concerned Citizen
Learn more from scientist Samatha Williams and engineer Joey Norris as they share a brief update on the Red Oak/Montgomery County post-spill activities and some information about the New Coop.
Other concerned citizens along with Izaak Walton League’s Midwest Save our Streams Coordinator Heather Wilson will join the discussion to explore how to move forward with organizing a citizen science stream-monitoring based program. Local advocacy is key to protecting waterways for both public health and recreation. Engaging, Educating and Empowering… local citizens in communities along with giving them the tools is one of the first steps in helping to be part of the solution in cleaning up our public lands and waterways.
Samantha Williams has a degree in Biology from Iowa State University and is a former scientist with Des Moines Water Works and BioProcess Algae in Shenandoah. She is an avid clean water advocate with an eye for chemical and biological impacts. Joey Norris is a concerned citizen of SW Iowa and seeks ways to protect the East Nishnabotna River. Joey is an engineer and economic development enthusiast.
Watershed Talks with Chris Jones
Watershed Talks ~ May 14, 2024
Clean Water Matters, a scientist and angler’s perspective
How one of the Iowa’s leading researchers uses his voice to amplify why clean water matters!
Chris Jones— Scientist, Author and Angler
Learn more from Author, Scientist, and Angler Chris Jones about how he’s been able to share his knowledge and expertise with others concerning the truth and the significance of Iowa’s water pollution problems. Jones has spent decades of his professional career working with private and public sectors of agriculture, environment and water. As a former University of Iowa water quality research engineer, Chris remains at the forefront of data illustrating the damaging intersection of intensive corn, soybean and CAFO systems with Iowa’s landscape throughout the Mississippi Watershed.
Jone’s book The Swine Republic **has been chosen by the Library of Congress’ Center of the Book to be one of 56 books included in the “Great Reads from Great Places” list for the 2024 National Book Festival. From his recent blog, we also learned that over Chris’s lifetime, he has cleaned at least 5000 caught fish and probably eaten about half of those, so, in the interest of ‘writing what you know’, he shares his Iowa’s best quality fish species.
Chris Jones Links:
https://riverraccoon.substack.com/
https://icecubepress.com/2023/04/10/the-swine-republic-2/
We continue to focus and highlight the legacy of the Izaak Walton League as one of America’s first conservation organizations leading significant conservation policy— one hundred years ago the League was the driving force behind the creation of the Upper Mississippi National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, which protects wildlife habitat along 261 miles of the river in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois.
Watershed Talks with Steven Marking
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Watershed Talks ~ April 9, 2024
“The League’s founder, Will Dilg Comes to Life”
How growing up on the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife & Fish Refuge creates a life-time passion to advocate for it through story telling.
Steven Marking— Riverlorian, Actor and Film Maker
Learn more from Riverlorian, Steven Marking about the significance the League played in the creation of our Upper Mississippi Refuge, which protects wildlife habitat along 261 miles of the river in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois. Steven will share why and how he has created an inspiring, one-man multi-media show entitled A Visit From Will Dilg. His story shares the history of how Dilg created a movement by forming the Izaak Walton League and why it matters today! In fact, celebration planning of the Refuge has sparked interest in creating a multi-state virtual Izaak Walton League Upper Mississippi River Chapter.
Steven Marking grew up on the Upper Mississippi Wildlife Refuge, on Pool #7 (also known as, Lake on Alaska). His father was Leif Marking, fishery research scientist for the National Fish and Wildlife Service in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Steven created a multi-media show called Our Mighty Mississippi to share the glory of the Mississippi River with anyone who would attend a show. One chapter of his show is about the creation and maintenance of the refuge, which led to his joining the Izaak Walton League while seeking more information about the Will Dilg Story.
In his one man show, Marking has created a script that relies heavily on Dilg’s own published words. He plays the role of Dilg along side of projected images and video that support the story of Will Dilg, the founding of the Izaak Walton League, and the battle against the reclamation menace that was stealing the Mississippi River’s precious backwater habitat from the Lower Mississippi on up. Ground zero for the battle was the Winneshiek Bottoms near Lansing, Iowa, which was already legally permitted to be drained, filled, and levied off to create farmlands.
Steven Marking holds a Masters Degree in Vocal Performance from the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, Maryland, and a Bachelors Degree from Viterbo University in his hometown of La Crosse, Wisconsin. He brings more than three decades of professional production and performance experience to his latest creation, A Visit From Will Dilg, and his ongoing masterpiece, Our Mighty Mississippi.
Steven is a Riverlorian, defined as follows:
“One who studies rivers and shares all aspects of navigation, nature, history, legends & lore with anyone who will listen. This could expand into river related topics that interest the Riverlorian and possibly even the audience.”
Steven is a Guest Speaker and Resident Entertainer for American Cruise Lines as they travel the Mississippi, Ohio, and Cumberland Rivers.
Marking will be a featured speaker this July at the League’s 2024 National Convention.
More info on Steve can be found at stevenmarking.com.