[Bell]
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You're looking at the Mississippi River, the border
between Wisconsin and Iowa.
Hello and welcome to a special summer edition of InWisconsin.
I'm Kathy Beeson filling in for Patty Low.
We're here today at Wile Loosing State Park in Grant County.
We'll tell you a little bit more about the park and the
Mississippi later tonight.
And we'll introduce you to a woman who makes
her living keeping order on the blue highway.
We'll also tell you about a tiny critter that's just big
enough to stop city hall.
But first we wrap up our Waren Wisconsin U.S.
Senate road trip series.
Remember the candidates don't know in advance where
they're going, who they'll meet or what they'll be asked.
This time reporter Frederica Freiberg spent
the day with Republican candidate Tim J.
Michaels traveling throughout Lincoln
and Marathon counties.
This Waren Wisconsin road trip begins in the
Lincoln County seat.
It's a quiet but curious breakfast crowd at a
cafe in downtown Marrow.
Hi Tim Michaels, good morning.
May, Bruce Lee, Helen Wallace and Charlotte Peters
can't quite place him.
That's what we're working on.
But as long as he's appeared at their table, the
ladies jump at the chance to quiz the candidate.
What maybe you think you can do it?
I'm a business owner.
We have a construction business.
And we actually employ nearly a 2,000 construction people.
So we're one of the larger construction
businesses in the state.
But we've created hundreds of jobs even over the
last few years in a very difficult economy.
And I served 12 years on active duty as an
airborne Ranger Imptryman.
I understand what our troops are going through in the
Middle East right now.
And I have ideas on how we need to fight the war on terrorism.
They ask about family values.
I'm pro-life.
I want to see a good education for my kids.
I believe the parents should have the
choice to take their kids to whatever school they would like.
These ladies aren't finished yet.
I'm against that.
I think marriage should be
between a man and a woman.
It's been that way for thousands of years.
And they ask, what about jobs?
Lowering taxes works.
Put more money back in the people's pockets.
And I believe that's why the economy is perking up right now.
And the verdict?
You think Tim Michaels had just about covered it.
But his day was just beginning.
Mayor of Merrill, Doug Williams worries about the
loss of jobs in his city to overseas competition.
Saying the wine-brenner shoe company in town is an
example of a manufacturer competing against low-cost
Chinese or Mexican goods.
What's your proposal or what's your ideas and thoughts on
how we're going to level this table so that we can...
compete? We need to use that big
stick, which is using short-term trade barriers
and short-term tariffs to get them to play by the rules.
This isn't a problem that needs to get solved over the next 10
years. This is a problem that needs to get solved immediately.
And especially if you're sitting at home and you're unemployed
and you can't buy groceries for your family, it becomes
a very immediate problem.
I like the fact that Tim said that it's something
that's got to be done now.
It's not something that we can wait 10 years to do.
We do a marketing for staff who business.
At CNH packaging in Merrill, as plastic wrapping for
familiar grocery items comes off the assembly line,
one worker asks Michaels about the high cost of gas.
We need to open up more of our natural resources in North
America, be it Canada or Alaska.
We also need to continue with our alternative school,
alternative fuel sources.
And we need to continue with our conservation effort.
The worker Bonnie Young asks about something dear
to her candidate's heart.
The big travesty is it's limited everybody's first
amendment rights and that's the right to free speech.
And within 30 days of a primary election and 60 days
of the general election, you're not no outside interest
group is allowed to run ads to talk about a senator's voting
record. I think that's wrong.
Young tells Michaels she wishes him well,
but she's for fine gold.
In downtown Warsaw, Michaels seeks out friendly faces.
He runs a family owned construction business and
says wherever he goes, he likes to make impromptu
stops to talk the trade.
This crew doesn't make much time for Michaels, but allows
him to tromp around the site.
At a restaurant in Warsaw, a group gathers over lunch to
press the candidate on issues, including Jim Rosenberg, who
wonders if Michaels questions as he does any link between
terrorism and the war in Iraq.
Can you respond to that a little bit?
I do respect your service.
I spend six years in the military myself.
I know we're in government.
I think that we are being preemptive on the war on
terrorism. We're fighting the terrorist in their backyards.
And that's better than fighting them in our backyards in New
York City or Chicago or Warsaw.
So I think we disagree a little bit there as to the
effectiveness of fighting the war in Iraq and that be
fighting the war on terrorism.
The position that he expressed is one that has expressed
a lot by people that support this course of action.
To me, the war on Iraq and the war on terrorism are two
distinctly different things.
And so it's good to know what a candidate's position
on that.
It's a very important question and an age.
But to me, it's not exactly what I'm looking for
because I'm not sure if you're fighting terrorism,
that would be the most efficient piece of resources and really
what the endgame is over there.
On the street, Michael gets into a friendly debate with
retired dentist Byron Hurst, who questions one prong of
the candidate's solution to the high cost of medical care.
But how does a health savings account affect somebody making
$20,000 a year?
They don't have any tax if they pay
to even get a tax credit on.
This is missing the point.
It's a step in the right direction.
It's not the end.
For those who have a lot of money, it's a step in the
right direction.
But if you can build up a thousand
dollars in a health savings account over the years,
it will mean something.
It may not mean something.
These people live here in this area.
There are so many people in this state in this area.
In the rural economy of Wisconsin, they're living
hand-in-mouth, they're losing their farms.
On the farm outside of Warsaw, medical costs are
the issue for father-son team Gary and Sam Zimmerman.
Healthcare is the big thing.
I believe the right move is to bring more of the free market
system into the healthcare.
And as move away from government-run healthcare
and put the purchasing power in the hands of the people,
the people that are the consumers of the healthcare,
if you will, give them more opportunity through individual
health savings accounts.
At a neighboring farm, Jim Heads talks about the pending US
Australia free trade agreement.
It would just devastate us.
Tim, what do you think of the Australian deal?
Well, I think what we need to have is
we need to have fair trade, and there needs to be a
two-way street.
And what James just said is exactly right.
You have government back dumping on our markets to
try and, you know, put more farmers out of business.
And we need legislators in Washington that are willing to
stand up for guys like this and have a level playing field.
In fact, both Wisconsin's current Democratic US senators
have stood up against provisions in the agreement.
They believe what hurt Wisconsin dairy farmers, standing
in opposition to the Bush administration on the issue.
We wondered if Tim Michaels meant to be rejecting the
administration's position.
So you're opposed to the Australian deal?
Well, I don't know if I know enough
of the details of that to say I'm opposed to the report.
I will find out more about it and I'll get back
to you on that though.
So perhaps not as comfortable on farm issues as with
tools of his own trade, but willing to learn.
And Tim Michaels believes the US Senate should include
more people like him.
You know, to use a cliche butchers-bakers,
candlestick-makers from all over the country to come together.
You know, I'm a construction guy.
Well, there's not a single construction
guy in the US Senate.
And I'm not doing it to promote any specific industry,
but there should at least be one construction guy.
I'll also run for the US Senate.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
You heard about me?
Oh, yeah, definitely.
You can find out more about all of the candidates in
Wisconsin's US Senate race by going to our election year
web resource was Consonvote.
The address is Wisconsinvote.org.
Once there, you'll find video links to the
rest of our wherein Wisconsin Senate Roadtrip series.
There are also links to the candidates' campaign
sites, voter registration information, and much more.
The Midwest has already received record amounts of rain this
year, and the high water levels certainly complicate work for
the woman in our next story.
Dileen Moser is a lock master at lock and dam number seven
near La Crescent, Minnesota.
For her, keeping track of life on the blue highway
is all in a day's work.
In the 1930s, a series of locks and dams were constructed
on Upper Mississippi River.
These steps along the stairway of water were built
to maintain a nine foot channel that would increase
barge traffic and commerce.
There are now 29 locks and dams between St.
Paul, Minnesota and St.
Louis, Missouri.
Dileen Moser is in charge of one of these stairways
of water.
Every day, she drives from her home in
Genoa, Wisconsin, 25-minute drive to where she works at
lock and dam number seven, located in Mississippi River
near La Crescent, Minnesota.
The lock itself is like a stairway.
This is a system.
We either raise or lower the water to whichever
side that there are.
And then we open the gates and they come in.
Then we can close the miter gates
and then we lower the water or raise it again depending
which direction they're going.
The water seeks its own level and then we open the gates and
the other end and let them out.
Passage through the rocks is on a first-gum, first-served
basis. They are opened 24 hours a day, seven days a week,
to all types of watercraft.
Moser says she once locked through a single canoe
at two in the morning.
We meet quite a few people.
I don't average, it's about 12,000
small craft lockages a year and about 1200-tobal lockages.
So you need a lot of people, whether it's deck hands that
are working on the barbed lines or small craft that the
people are going through, you know, maybe for a Sunday pick
maker, the people that are in the fishing tournament and
they really want that lockage fast, so hurry hurry, you know.
The Mississippi River is also known as the Blue Highway,
a major transportation route for farm produce and other
goods like coal and fertilizer.
We lock through about a little over 12 million
tons of cargo every year.
Thanks, Peyton.
The chamber will start token-y down.
[applause]
In January of 2003, Moser became the first female lockmaster
on the Upper Mississippi River.
I don't think about it a lot.
Other people think about it a lot more than I do.
For me, it's just the work, you
know, that you've always been doing and it's just fun more
job. It's just a natural step.
As long as you were coming, we wanted you to be aware of it.
What Moser calls a natural step is one few women have taken.
There are only three women lockmasters on the entire river.
Moser herself started in what she calls a more traditional
job for women on the river.
In 1986, I started as a clerk at Lock and Dam
Tam in Gutton, Bergaioa.
The clerk's positions are mostly female and they work part-time.
It was much more beneficial to become an operator.
I like working outdoors, so it was a good thing
for me.
I enjoyed that.
Over the next 16 years, Moser climbed the ladder.
I became an operator in about 1990 at Lock Tam.
Then in 1995, I became a head operator at the Genoa,
Wisconsin, at Lock and Dam 8.
From there, I became a Lock leader at Lock
and Dam 6 in Turample.
I was there about two years.
And then in January now, of 2003, I came down to Lock 7.
Here's a Lock Master.
As Lock Master, Moser is responsible for everything
that goes on within Lock and Dam number 7,
from safety and security of the structure.
Navigation of small craft and tow boat
passage through the locks, cruise ships, daily
assignments, and payroll.
Better get it, probably be like in time to
supply water or whatever.
On this day, an inspection team arrives.
The team is made up of people from the
Department of Natural Resources, U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service, and engineers from Iowa,
Minnesota, and Wisconsin.
There's been a lot of damage to the embankments through
flooding, particularly 2001.
Some of the worst damage has been repaired, but
other of it is in the planning stage for repair.
And as we do those repairs, we may have opportunities
for environmental restoration of some of the ecosystem
features around here.
Moser is here to assist with any questions the team may have
with this specific embankment.
Because they're going to be visiting about 10 of them
altogether, I understand.
And so, and each site has a few things that are site
specific, so I try to answer those questions for them.
You know, when you have the high water and ice, you
can get some wind blowing.
It's kind of a combination.
This Christmas is in here.
Working on the river, Moser is exposed to an
unrivaled diversity of goods, from the people she meets,
to the dazzling scenery, to the wildlife she sees.
And we do the dike inspections and that type of thing.
CC and mind the islands or whatever.
And of course, we have raccoon on the sites and muskrats
and all kinds of things.
There was a man.
We didn't pay a whole lot of attention to him.
Here, the fellow was in the observation deck
and he had a saxophone.
It was beautiful, especially with the sound coming
from the water and the lock chamber itself.
You never know what's going to happen at a lock and dam, and
what you're going to come in.
[Music]
While we're enjoying scenic areas like Wile Loosing State
Park during our summer episodes, we're also expanding our borders
a bit and bringing you stories from other Midwestern states.
One of those is Nebraska, where the tiny Tiger Beetle
is putting the brakes on plans for development.
You ever lose any students out here, don't you?
We've had a couple of think-in and lose your shoes.
There's nothing easy and nothing high-tech about the way
UNL-anemologist Steve Spomer and Bill Allguyer track Salt
Creek Tiger Beetle populations.
They count them one by one, slugging through the wetlands
and creek beds north of Lincoln, not far from Interstate 80.
How many do you get?
12. 29, not bad.
Not bad for this place.
You know, it's from E-Rope.
The Salt Creek Tiger Beetle was discovered but mostly forgotten
about a hundred years ago.
Spomer first heard of it in 1984.
A butterfly researcher by trade, the rare beetle
soon became his hobby.
This isn't part of my job description.
Actually, I just started to do this because
I felt it was important and we had an insect that
was named after Lincoln and I just kind of wanted
to find out more about it.
Allguyer was an auto industry executive in Michigan.
He traded his suit and tie for rubber
boots to go back to grad school and work with the rare beetles.
Trying to figure out exactly why this beetle is so restricted
is most interesting and it's really what stimulated
a lot of my research.
They counted nearly 800 in June and July.
That's the only time the Salt Creek Tiger
Beetles are around.
The adults only live for about six weeks.
Researchers think the insect has a two-year life cycle.
It lays eggs in the soil.
The larval hatches and digs a burrow
it lives in until adulthood.
Basically what it does is just sits there and waits
for movement or a shadow to pass over the burrow or they
can feel the movements of an insect walking up there.
They'll go up and grab the insect even if it's bigger
than themselves and they'll try to pull it back down in
the burrow where they eat it.
Spomer and allguyer spot the adult by looking for
their unique behavior.
Salt Creek Tiger Beetles is usually by the edge of the
water so it'll run along the edge of the water and
looking for shoreflies or other little maggots or any
kind of insect to feed on.
But they'll take these little bursts where they'll go about
six inches at a time and they'll stop and kind of look
around and then move another six or so inches at a time.
So they kind of get what I call a nervous behavior.
They're named for the little salt creek.
This is their habitat along with the
nearby saline marshes.
It's also home to a rare small
plant called the saltwort.
If you break off a little piece and chew it, you can taste the
salt in it.
It's one of the few plants that can live in the real
salty environment like this.
The saltwort and salt creek tiger beetle are on Nebraska's
endangered species list.
Spomer thinks that because this saline
wetlands is so unique, there may be other rare species.
He's also concerned this may disappear as Lincoln
rapidly grows to the north.
You hear a lot of comments about why should we save the
beetle and you know these people should be worrying
about something more important.
But to me it is important.
I mean it's this habitat is almost
gone now.
If we plow over it or build houses here, that's it.
It's never going to come back.
That hasn't happened yet, but large-scale development is
closing in.
A proposed 600 acre industrial and residential
housing project would sit just south of the wetlands.
There has to be some significant pressure I would imagine
for people who do want to develop that in that area.
Yeah, there is.
We're trying to find the balance between
human development and the activities of man and the
natural environment and nature.
The beetles and their home already have some city
and state protection.
Local officials put a 500 foot
buffer zone around the wetlands to slow development.
On the city side what it amounts to is until we get
more information we're not going to extend water lines
and sewer lines in the infrastructure and the roads
to allow the city to grow in that direction at this time.
The state endangered species designation means it's against
the law to kill or harm a listed species.
It also calls for an environmental
review of anything the state is involved in in the area.
All state agencies are required to ensure that any action
that they either conduct, fund or authorize does not
imperil or further jeopardize an endangered species.
This could include a road project or something an
individual landowner is doing that requires a state permit.
The federal endangered species designation that's pending would
add similar protection for the beetle and oversight of projects
involving federal funds.
It could also mean funding for habitat recovery plans.
Area landowners say the government at any level is
putting bugs ahead of people.
In my opinion this beetle is not a prolific animal
and I think it's already going endangered on its own.
Doug Nagle is a regular at meetings like this university
sponsored seminar on the Tiger Beetle.
Nagle's farmed near the beetle habitat for 13 years.
He heads a group of 32 local landowners called North
Lancaster County citizens for common sense development.
They formed to fight restrictions on land use.
To me I wonder where on earth we're going to draw the line
on all this protection for less than a thousand beetles.
Nagle has no plans to sell his land for now but he's
concerned restrictions on land use could reduce his options
and pocketbook in the future.
Maybe five, ten, fifteen years from now it would be a no
brainer to sell it because you know it not to sound greedy
or anything but it will produce a lot of income for us.
And that being said the other thing that it will
do is allow us to buy farm ground somewhere else so
I can keep my heredity in farming and agriculture going.
Mel King's roots have been in this land all his life.
He played along the banks of little sought creek as a boy.
Now he owns and rents out farm land that runs right up to the
creek inside the buffer zone.
And I'm willing to go along and set a reasonable amount
of land aside for the tiger beetle and the wetlands.
But I'm a little afraid the conservationists in
the game of parks are going a little bit overboard.
King's worried about how farm operations might be hurt
by a federal designation.
It would probably limit where we could cultivate
and it would limit what chemicals we could put on.
We've had some problems with corn borers and so on this
year that I would imagine that they'd say hey you can't spray
for those you're liable to kill one of the salt beetles.
King and Nagle both say landowners have been good
stewards of the beetle habitat without the
government telling them how.
King built a diversion dam to keep run off water from
his land out of salt creek and hasn't planted on land
right next to the creek to preserve its natural state.
Nagle believes conservation minded farmers may
have actually kept the wetlands from disappearing.
Through our hard work and our efforts to save the area we're
probably getting punished by it.
I'm certain I'm glad that the conservationists in the
game commission weren't around here when the dinosaurs
were here we'd be up to our eyeballs in dinosaurs.
This summer Bill Allgyer was up to his eyeballs in salt
creek tiger beetle larvae.
He set traps along the creek to find out why female beetles
lay eggs in certain places.
Currently I have 123 traps and with the emergency traps
I have to feed the larvae about every three days so
it becomes pretty labor intensive so it's almost like
I have 123 children out here.
Allgyer is trying to answer some of the many questions
about his adopted children and their unique home.
The lack of information about salt creek tiger beetles is
part of the problem.
No one knows for certain how they'll
be affected by development of any kind or whether a
solution can be crafted that makes everyone happy including
a few hundred nervous bugs.
That report was produced by our colleagues at
Nebraska Public Television.
Now while there aren't any known tiger beetles in
while losing state park one thing you should be on the
lookout for is the gypsy moth.
The invasive pest can strip the forest of leaves and loves
to nest in camping gear and on vehicles so make sure to
check your gear and vehicle for teardrop shaped eggs or
caterpillars before you head out to any state park this summer.
That's our program for tonight we hope you enjoyed our visit
to while losing state park.
We leave you now with a few more of the park sites
for in Wisconsin I'm Kathy Beeson good night.
[Music]