New Report On Reservoir Locations

[ozark trout fisher]

What the hell does being open-minded have to do with ruining a natural free-flowing Ozarks spring creek? This issue is pretty cut and dried. Do we want to lose Crane Creek for an unnecessary impoundment?

You're right. Being fair and open minded has nothing to do with being willing to watch a perfectly good spring creek be darn (Yes I know, I spelled it like that on purpose). There is nothing fair or open-minded about thinking with your pocketbook, which seems like Dutch's and CBMNO's only concern in the world.

[Flysmallie]

I am more than happy to disscuss this with you but, lets not turn it into a TR forum type urinating match.

Too late Chief...

Anywayi I'm done with those. I would like to see that article. That's what I've always been told, is that the fish were released from trains.

I also don't see what value it would bring in building it there and pumping the water to Springfield (if that's where it's going). They built the pipeline from Stockton to Fellows lake but I have rarely seen it in use. Of course they have had nothing but problems with it as well. I'm not sure if it's even functioning right now.

To me the trout aren't the biggest issue, it's the daming of another stream. There are plenty of other lakes to take the water from.

[Al Agnew]

Chief...you're right, I know of a number of small dams on decent sized streams that were built for water supply. The difference between existing dams like on Shoal Creek, and a dam on Crane Creek, is that Shoal Creek is large enough and has enough flow that a dam on it is really only there to make a more stable pool from which to take the existing water flow. Crane Creek isn't that big. A dam on it for water supply would necessarily have to be bigger, in order to hold enough water to have a reliable supply even when the creek is very low and little water is flowing into the lake. In other words, the lake would have to hold a lot more water, and would necessarily fluctuate a lot more, in order to work as a water supply dam. And when you start talking about lakes like that, you'd also be looking at possibly more severe restrictions on recreational use, since the water flowing into the lake would be sitting there in the lake for a while instead of circulating through it. You'd have to preserve the quality of that water as much as possible...no gasoline motors, perhaps? There are lakes in other parts of the country like that (California and New York come to mind) where there are restrictions on everything from development around the lakes to motor use to body contact (swimming) in order to protect water quality as much as possible for municipal water use. Not saying this would definitely be the case, but I wouldn't rule it out until the whole thing is in place.

As for whether the dam would affect the trout section, even though it wouldn't back water up into it...maybe, maybe not. On the one hand, it's quite possible (see above) that the upper watershed would get more protection from development and other things that might affect water quality or water quantity (restrictions on ground water use to protect the spring flow?). On the other hand, reservoirs on Ozark streams DO affect the streams above the reservoirs, due to rough fish that thrive in the reservoirs continually moving upstream into the free-flowing sections. Also, unless there is a good buffer zone between normal reservoir backwater and totally free-flowing stream, in floods the reservoir would temporarily slow stream flow for miles above it, causing siltation and gravel filling of the usually free-flowing section.

[Chief Grey Bear]

Chief...you're right, I know of a number of small dams on decent sized streams that were built for water supply. The difference between existing dams like on Shoal Creek, and a dam on Crane Creek, is that Shoal Creek is large enough and has enough flow that a dam on it is really only there to make a more stable pool from which to take the existing water flow. Crane Creek isn't that big.

Ahhh, thanks Al, that was another point I mean to make. Crane Creek will never, in my opinion, provide a stable, reliable source for water.

Flysmallie - here ya go:

State’s trout program has storied history

By SPENCER E. TURNER Special to the Tribune

Published Monday, June 16, 2008

A fisheries biologist friend asked if I had any information about the origins of Missouri’s brown trout and rainbow trout.

After being away from the fisheries field for more than 10 years, my first thought was I didn’t have any current information. After giving his request some thought, I provided what information I had, with the caveat that I was working from memory.

Let me paraphrase what I told him and provide a short history of Missouri’s trout program.

In modern history, Missouri’s streams never supported native trout species. Historically, however, ichthyologists - people who study fish - found char bones in a road cut near Missouri’s southern boarder. They dated the bones to about 13,000 years past, during the last ice age, when Missouri’s climate was much cooler and streams supported char - a salmonid related to modern brook trout and lake trout.

The ice receded, Missouri streams warmed and the Ozarks Mountains gradually rose. Char gradually disappeared. The last refuges were major springs such as Mammoth Spring in Arkansas near where scientists discovered the bones.

Skip forward 13,000 years. The only cold waters that could support trout are branches associated with major springs.

Missouri’s modern trout program began with a shipment of rainbow trout eggs in 1880 from the McCloud River federal egg-taking station on the McCloud River in northern California. The eggs arrived at Missouri’s first fish hatchery in St. Joseph, where they hatched. The fry and fingerling trout were stocked in streams and spring branches along the railroad between St. Louis, Springfield and Joplin.

Some streams we know about: Meramec River, Spring River near Vernon and Crane Creek near Crane. Others, like Spring Creek, Little Piney River and Mill Creek, also might have been stocked.

In 1882, the Missouri Fish Commission reported Missouri rainbows spawning for the first time in Crane Creek and Spring River. Between 1880 and 1890, Missouri received several rainbow egg shipments before the St. Joseph hatchery shut down because of a declining water supply as the city grew.

This first hatchery was replaced by a carp hatchery in Forest Park in St. Louis. Emphasis shifted from stocking a few trout every couple of years to producing carp and stocking them throughout the state. The Missouri Fish Commission hired a German fish culturist and brought him to Missouri to raise carp.

Trout stocking and fishing took another large jump in 1890 when the Neosho Federal Fish Hatchery opened and began producing and stocking rainbows in Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas streams from broodstock provided from the St. Joseph hatchery. For the next few years, until the 1920s, most Missouri trout came from Neosho. They stocked primarily rainbows but also brown trout, lake trout, cutthroat trout and even Atlantic and Pacific salmon.

Stocking was indiscriminate, with little consideration given to where or what streams or ponds were stocked. In looking through the archives of the Neosho hatchery, I realized if you knew someone at the hatchery, you could probably have trout stocked in your stream or lake.

Maybe the most interesting story from the archives was of the "German Girl" and problems the hatchery manager faced. She was never named in the memoranda and letters but caused enough problems that the Kansas City Catholic bishop became involved, and the manager ultimately lost his job. However, that’s a story for another time.

Missouri’s trout program took off in the 1920s and ’30s when the state acquired Bennett Springs, Roaring River and Montauk for state parks and hatcheries and Sequeota Hatchery in Springfield. They all were private hatcheries before the state purchased them. Most rainbow trout they produced were stocked in spring branches and streams near the hatcheries. The original broodstock for the three hatcheries came from Neosho and were what became the "Missouri Strain" rainbow trout, a hatchery trout strain now recognized nationally by fish culturists.

Trout stocking in Missouri changed little between 1900 through 1937 when Missouri citizens passed a constitutional amendment establishing the Missouri Conservation Commission and Missouri Department of Conservation.

MDC restricted rainbow stocking to the three state parks and a few cold-water spring branches open to public fishing. MDC added Maramec Springs, a private trout park, in the 1960s.

Brown trout had a checkered history in Missouri’s trout program. The Neosho federal hatchery stocked brown trout first in 1892 in streams near Neosho. These fish came from Northville Federal Hatchery in Michigan, one of three hatcheries in the country to receive brown trout eggs from the Rhine River in Germany and Loch Leven in Scotland.

As near as I could determine from the hatchery logs and Missouri Fish Commission reports, those early stockings were unsuccessful. The stocked browns didn’t live long or reproduce like the early rainbow stockings. Brown trout stocking was discontinued in the 1930s until the 1960s.

Brown trout came back into Missouri’s trout program in 1967, when MDC received brown trout eggs from the federal hatchery in Decorah, Iowa. Those browns were the same strain as first stocked from Neosho. MDC hatched the eggs at Montauk Hatchery and stocked the small browns in the Current, North Fork of the White and Meramec rivers. Anglers caught a few large browns in both the Current River and North Fork of White River. Success was limited. Anglers caught only a few large browns.

The eggs proved difficult to hatch. Fry and fingerlings experienced high hatchery mortality. Brood stock experienced a chronic disease. Once stocked, the small browns quickly disappeared - likely food for smallmouth bass and other predators. Those few survivors grew large.

That’s when your humble reporter, at the time a young biologist, fresh out of graduate school, supporting a wife and three young hatchlings, received his first assignment: to evaluate the brown trout releases and what happened to them.

Along with evaluating those first brown trout stockings, hatchery managers destroyed the Montauk brood stock. MDC began looking for a disease-free brown trout replacement. Finding disease-free browns proved difficult. Our search ended at a Utah hatchery on a tributary stream to Flaming Gorge Reservoir, Sheep Creek. The hatchery used wild browns, migrating each year from Flaming Gorge Reservoir to the hatchery as brood stock.

We hatched the Flaming Gorge brown trout eggs at Shepherd of the Hills Hatchery in Branson and established a brood stock for future stockings. However, along the way something neat happened. Mature browns stocked in Lake Taneycomo from the wild Flaming Gorge strain, began migrating each fall upstream, back to the hatchery, not only creating one of the best brown trout fisheries in the nation, but also providing a source of brown trout eggs for the hatchery. It was a win-win for the angling public and Missouri’s hatchery system.

These brown trout were wilder than the original browns from Michigan and Iowa hatcheries and were heavier for a given body length. They lived longer after stocking and grew larger than the first browns.

We still had a problem with high egg mortality in the hatchery and understanding why Missouri browns didn’t spawn successfully in our spring branches. We learned that if they were protected from early harvest by anglers, they grew large and spawned, but unsuccessfully, in our spring branches.

I discovered our spring branches flowing from the ground at 58 degrees were too warm during October and November when browns spawned.

A blinding flash of the obvious: Shepherd of the Hills Hatchery had the capability to regulate water temperatures during brown trout egg incubation. Hatchery managers reduced water temperatures to less than 53 degrees. Egg survival increased to almost 100 percent. This allowed hatchery and fisheries managers to stock brown trout in many more trout streams in Missouri, establishing a trophy trout fishery.

Although small, Missouri’s trout program is one of the oldest in the nation and one of the most respected.

And you, the trout angler, has benefited from this program. Take time this year to visit and fish Missouri’s trout parks or special trout management streams. Enjoy one of the best-managed trout fisheries in the country. And, if you should encounter an old, rotund, fly-rod wielding, ex-fisheries biologist, tip your hat and fish on.

[Buzz]

Just a reminder. This reservoir is intended to supplement the increased water usage ( projected population increases ) for the next 20 to 50 years. It is also a cooperative plan that will help supply water to not only Springfield and Joplin, but also Monett and I would suspect many other smaller towns along the way.

So, I have a hard time believing that this will be even remotely similar to what we have on Shoal Creek already. Those two spots have a great water flow year around and are not much more than wide spots in the creek. They do exactly what they are intended to do without too much interference with the actual flow of the creek itself and are not used to the extent that I believe these proposals are intended. Not Urinating Chief. Just my take on the situation.

My main concern is the term "RESERVOIR". Websters Dictionaries definition of reservoir: 1) A place where some material is stored for use, esp. a lake, usu. artificial, for collecting and storing water.

The proposed site for Shoal Creek is at or near the point where Hwy. 60 crosses it. This is a huge valley of farmland and hayfields, very few individual farms, but a lot of land either way. That is why I think that site was picked.

As for Crane, I really don't understand why this creek was even picked. Does anyone remember the drought that just about put it down completely???? This creek has an average flow, nothing great, and it is supposed to help supply water to well over a half million people. I wonder if they are not messing with us just a little bit.

JMO.

I just don't want to wait and see that they pulled a fast one. That's why I suggest you ask the questions to the one's that were elected to work for us.

[CBNMO]

First I have no financial interest, one way or the other. I don't live near Crane Creek and don't know anyone that does. I have the same concerns as everyone else. I was just trying to state the facts from both sides, as I see them. I think that is being open - minded ?

One difference between a dam here and the ones on Shoal Creek, this one is proposed to be 110 foot tall storage dam. Shoal Creek dams are what, 20 - 30 foot ? Shoal Creek dams are also "run of the river" type dams. The pools created on Shoal Creek sustain the same fisheries above the dams as they do below them. Is this not (mostly) correct ?

They propose to pump water from James River into this reservoir. I don't know what the temperature differential is between the two bodies of water? Standing water in a 100' deep reservoir does increase in temperature. I expect the water temp of the reservoir to be quite a bit higher than Crane Creek. The city of Springfield dumps their (treated) sewage into the James River. I dont' know what effect pumping this water into the lake would have on the lakes water chemistry? Does anyone else ?

The new lake COULD have no swimming restrictions like Lake Eucha in Oklahoma. Could be restricted to no outboards larger than X HP, or no 2 cycle outboards, or no gas motors, or no boats allowed? Possible.

Stockton, Truman and Table Rock water supplies were mentioned early in this report. Others already have the rights to this water and don't want cities and farmers taking it away from them. With water tables dropping, well drilling is not a good option. The next best proposal is to capture surface water in one or more lakes. (per the report)

One option would be limit the local communities to the water capacity they already have available. Make them become more conservative, and when that's not enough, folks will quit digging up fields and quit bulldozing woodlots, and they will qut building new houses, stores and factories. When there isn't enough water to sustain everyone, folks will start moving on to other towns and states and leave our enviroment alone. (ok that's extreme, but it was fun to say ;-)

[ozark trout fisher]

First I have no financial interest, one way or the other. I don't live near Crane Creek and don't know anyone that does. I have the same concerns as everyone else. I was just trying to state the facts from both sides, as I see them. I think that is being open - minded ?

One difference between a dam here and the ones on Shoal Creek, this one is proposed to be 110 foot tall storage dam. Shoal Creek dams are what, 20 - 30 foot ? Shoal Creek dams are also "run of the river" type dams. The pools created on Shoal Creek sustain the same fisheries above the dams as they do below them. Is this not (mostly) correct ?

They propose to pump water from James River into this reservoir. I don't know what the temperature differential is between the two bodies of water? Standing water in a 100' deep reservoir does increase in temperature. I expect the water temp of the reservoir to be quite a bit higher than Crane Creek. The city of Springfield dumps their (treated) sewage into the James River. I dont' know what effect pumping this water into the lake would have on the lakes water chemistry? Does anyone else ?

The new lake COULD have no swimming restrictions like Lake Eucha in Oklahoma. Could be restricted to no outboards larger than X HP, or no 2 cycle outboards, or no gas motors, or no boats allowed? Possible.

Stockton, Truman and Table Rock water supplies were mentioned early in this report. Others already have the rights to this water and don't want cities and farmers taking it away from them. With water tables dropping, well drilling is not a good option. The next best proposal is to capture surface water in one or more lakes. (per the report)

One option would be limit the local communities to the water capacity they already have available. Make them become more conservative, and when that's not enough, folks will quit digging up fields and quit bulldozing woodlots, and they will qut building new houses, stores and factories. When there isn't enough water to sustain everyone, folks will start moving on to other towns and states and leave our enviroment alone. (ok that's extreme, but it was fun to say ;-)

I agree, that its a tough situation. But the point I am making, is that it is not an option to keep damming up streams at will, just to accomodate more folks. Frankly, I would much rather see some water restrictions go in place, or have water pumped from Table Rock. Yes... Doing the right thing sometimes does hurt the economy. But aren't some things more important?

[Chief Grey Bear]

Just a reminder. This reservoir is intended to supplement the increased water usage ( projected population increases ) for the next 20 to 50 years. It is also a cooperative plan that will help supply water to not only Springfield and Joplin, but also Monett and I would suspect many other smaller towns along the way.

Allow me to also add a few reminders as quoted from the article:

But construction is unlikely to happen anytime soon. Members of the coalition, including relatively young ones, joke that they will not live long enough to see a reservoir built because of all of the permits and approvals that must be obtained first.

Pete Rauch, chairman of the coalition's technical committee and general manager of Monett's utilities, said the coalition does not want reservoirs built.

"It's not a high priority of our members," he said. "It would be much better to pursue water that is already caught."

Rauch said the study should not be misconstrued to mean the coalition has made a commitment to a reservoir. The study was designed to identify the order of magnitude in terms of costs, environmental permitting and relocation of property owners. Also to be taken into consideration are the costs associated with constructing a dam, acquiring land and cost of transmission.

John Rutledge, spokesman for Freese and Nichols, said the study determined that the construction of one reservoir to serve all of Southwest Missouri was impractical and far more costly than building two reservoirs.

"The difference is about $200 million," he said. "One large reservoir (known as Site 10 on the James River) would cost $600 million. The other reservoirs would cost about $200 million each."

The way I see it, a reservoir of any type anywhere would be a last resort.

BTW, did Webster's give any size requirements before is could be labled as a reservoir? By definition, what you pour your windshield wiper fluid in is a reservoir.

Are we still going fishing this weekend????

[Buzz]

BTW, did Webster's give any size requirements before is could be labled as a reservoir? By definition, what you pour your windshield wiper fluid in is a reservoir.

Are we still going fishing this weekend????

Actually the second one is 2) A receptacle for a fluid. 3)An extra supply; store.

No size requirements are listed, but I think lake sort of says it all.

Fishing, FISHING??? After all that you have the gawl to ask if I'll go fishing with YOU????????

Ok.

[ozark trout fisher]

Allow me to also add a few reminders as quoted from the article:

But construction is unlikely to happen anytime soon. Members of the coalition, including relatively young ones, joke that they will not live long enough to see a reservoir built because of all of the permits and approvals that must be obtained first.

Pete Rauch, chairman of the coalition's technical committee and general manager of Monett's utilities, said the coalition does not want reservoirs built.

"It's not a high priority of our members," he said. "It would be much better to pursue water that is already caught."

Rauch said the study should not be misconstrued to mean the coalition has made a commitment to a reservoir. The study was designed to identify the order of magnitude in terms of costs, environmental permitting and relocation of property owners. Also to be taken into consideration are the costs associated with constructing a dam, acquiring land and cost of transmission.

That's good news. I hope they mean it.