(upbeat music)
- Hello and welcome to In Wisconsin.
I'm Patty Lowe.
Each week we bring you stories about the issues
and people in our state.
This week, find out why members of the Molec Chippewa tribe
believe the health of this lake is affecting
a historic tradition.
Meet an Niagara man with one proper of a fish tail.
And it's no longer your father's shop class.
Welcome to TechEd, home to our future carpenters
and interior designers.
We'll have those stories plus a report on concerns
about the long-term health of the Mississippi River
in Wisconsin.
- Major funding for In Wisconsin is provided
by the people of a lion's energy who bring safe, reliable and
environmentally friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods,
and life in Wisconsin running smoothly.
A lion's energy, offering energy saving ideas on the web.
(upbeat music)
- Our first report takes us to the Mississippi,
which has earned the dubious distinction
of being placed on the list of America's
most endangered rivers.
The list is compiled each year by the American
Rivers Association and includes waterways
facing acute threats.
The Mississippi had actually been taken off
the endangered rivers list in 2002,
but now it's back on.
Producer Joanne Garrett found that's due to concerns
about how future commercial interests will be balanced
with preserving the river's ecosystem.
- It is a spectacular resource.
- The Big Muddy, the third largest river
system in the world.
The Mississippi is one of the nation's hardest
working waterways.
It's both a commercial highway and a critical haven
for wildlife.
It carries a tremendous amount of freight.
Half of the nation's corn and soybeans are ferried
through this river.
And it carries tremendous weight as a habitat.
Hundreds of species migrate through this Mississippi flyway
or call it home.
- We are kind of at a pivotal point right now.
- Gretchen Benjamin is the Mississippi River Planner
for the Department of Natural Resources.
- The ecosystem is in a degraded state.
If we don't do something now to restore it, we will lose it.
- Right now they're asking the river to be multitasking,
if you will.
- We use it for recreation.
We use it for commercial navigation.
And we have a lot of non-human inhabitants out there
who use it in various ways, whether it's
a migratory corridor or a place where they
live, you're around.
- We ask a lot of this river and some tasks have exacted a toll.
To support the crucial industry, commercial navigation,
we've changed the river.
No longer free flowing, we've altered its
course and water levels to create reliable
shipping lanes.
An industry and a great deal of commerce depends on it.
- We now have a nine-foot channel out in the river.
A system where a 1200-foot tow can move up and down the river
and carry huge amounts of grain, fertilizer, oil,
a number of different products that get moved
up and down the river.
- All it!
- At the heart of that system are 29 lock-and-dams
on the Upper Mississippi from St.
Louis, North, 10 of which border Wisconsin.
Built in the 1930s, they're managed by the
Army Corps of Engineers, which recently proposed
a massive 50-year plan to upgrade the lock-and-dams
system to cut shipping times, to cut costs.
- Currently, most of the money that's spent on the river
is spent to keep up the commercial
navigation channeling, keep ships moving on the river.
Very little money is spent on restoring the ecosystem.
- The 50-year plan does include dollars for restoration,
but the DNR and other agencies who do the work of repairing
the Mississippi fear that it's not enough.
As far as the ecosystems concerned,
what the Corps is recommending is a $5.3 billion package
over the next 50 years, and $5 billion over 50 years
only means about $100 million a year for restoration activities
to do some of those things like fish passage,
build islands, stretch backwaters, protect
existing habitat.
They'll get about $238 million every year
to keep the commercial navigation channel going.
River planners fear that the ecological restoration
won't get what it needs, that the balance is
tip too far one way.
- We believe that it's probably going to cost more
in the neighborhood of $8 to $10 billion to restore the river
and then sustain the river.
- To get this restoration flying, $8 to $10 billion
may seem like a lot, but consider the
size of the project.
Part of this restoration program is not just for
the state of Wisconsin.
It's for the upper five states and the Mississippi River Basin,
Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri,
restoring that whole area.
There's 1,200 miles of river in the upper
Mississippi River system.
- But the payout from the restoration part
of this 50-year project could be huge.
- Along the border of Wisconsin, the dollars that come from
healthy ecosystem are bigger than the dollars that come from
the navigation system.
Tourism in Western Wisconsin is one of our biggest
draws to this part of the state and one of the biggest engines
for the economy over here.
- After 150 years of changes, this river will never again
be a wild river, but it can be a more natural river.
One that Benjamin believes can support both barges and birds.
- We have seen tremendous resilience from the river
and the river rebounding.
We've done some pretty amazing things on the river.
We've started to rebuild islands back into the
river, dredge channels out.
We've done some experimental drawdowns where we
reduce the water levels and by reducing the water
levels we created the right conditions for aquatic plants
to come back and they did in fact respond very
nicely to that treatment.
So I've seen some things that really makes me optimistic
that we can do this, but we need to do it now.
We need to have the right resources to do it though.
We need to have the ability to balance the two primary
uses out on the river.
The Congressional Bill that would provide funding for the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Mississippi River Project
is currently in the House subcommittee on water
resources and environment.
According to the Office of the Bill's sponsor, the proposed
legislation will most likely die at the end of this month when
the current Congressional session finishes,
but it's expected to be reintroduced next spring.
We'll bring you updates.
[Music]
Anyone who's fished the Mississippi probably
has a fish story or two, but Roger Newhouse doesn't
need to make up stories about catching the big one
because he's able to carve the perfect fish.
Producer Liz Kurner traveled to Niagara in Marinette
County to see Newhouse's work and found there's nothing
fishy about his talent.
I've been a while I fish him in my whole life.
I love fish.
Roger Newhouse loves to fish.
He also loves to tell fish tales.
My mother said that when I was born I had
a fish pull in my hand.
Newhouse followed his first love since he was a child.
At the age of 55 he fell in love again in
love with fish carving.
Now I have the best of both worlds.
I can fish when I'm not carving and I can carve
when I'm not fishing.
[Music]
Newhouse taught himself out of carve these
highly realistic fish.
He remembers learning a few lessons the hard way.
In the beginning I did a fish and I started at the tail.
You know look beautiful all the way up to the head.
Then I found out I had some problems with the head.
Had I did the head first I didn't have all that work
that I had to throw away preceded.
So my best advice is for anybody carving or
learning to carve always do the head or face first.
Frozen fish pose as models for his art.
I've just found carving from real cadavers.
I just have made a lot of mistakes.
Fish don't lie to me.
I try to get as much detail off of a real fish into a
pattern to incorporate that into my fish carving itself.
Newhouse hooks ideas for his work everywhere.
He asked Ben Franklin one time, "Where do you get all your
ideas for all your inventions?"
and he said, "I just pluck them out of the air."
And that's kind of the way it is with me with my carving.
I see something and it connects to a carving
and then I'm on my way.
Newhouse took to fish carving like a fish to water.
And in 2001 entered his work in the World Fish Carving
Championships in Illinois.
He brought home a row of intermediate level ribbons.
Two years later at the World Championships,
he snagged an even more impressive prize
at the expert level.
He won Best of Category for his realistic bluegill.
"I was just so fine, so I just couldn't believe
it was happening to me."
Inspiration for the winning entry came from the scene.
"That was really inspired by the movie Mutianna
Dauni was Marlon Brando.
I was watching that film one day and I seen an old
sailor at a helm of a ship.
And I thought, you know, it would really be cool
to do a wall mount and make a ship's wheel.
And then in the center of that wheel, display
a wall mount carving.
The bluegill was a knot or a burl on a butternut
slab that I picked up free from the mill over here.
So I came home and I cut that knot off and
it was large enough.
I got into it and found out there was a lot of
pretty crazy green running.
So that was what I carved my bluegill out of."
Winning top honors at the Fish Carving Show was a dream
come true for Roger Newhouse, but his real reward comes
from pleasing the people.
"When people come up to the show and they see your carvings
and they really admire them, they say, "She's it
looked like it could just swim off by itself.
To me, that's more important than any ribbon I could
win or anything like that.
It's just a joy to see the expression on people.
It's a great gift to be given and to share with the public."
"I'm a gone fishin', yes I'm gone fishin',
I'm gone fishin' too."
Watching our report, you may have noticed over
Roger Newhouse's shoulder, a carving of the fish from
the movie Finding Nemo.
Well, after we interviewed Newhouse, the caricature carvers
of America gave him a special recognition award for that
carving. Only about 10 people in the country are
honored each year with this award.
Newhouse is now eligible to send his
carving to Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee
for the 2005 National Caracature Carvers of America competition.
Roger Newhouse took up carving later in life, but the teens in
our next story are learning much earlier how to work with
their hands.
What was once called Shop Class
has evolved into something called Technical Education
and producer Laurie Gorman found students are no longer
just building birdhouses.
Welcome to the Career Skills Expo and Skills
USA Conference, an annual opportunity to showcase
the state of technology education in Wisconsin.
The event at Madison's Alliance Energy Center
brings together students, teachers, department of public
instruction administrators, and representatives of
local business.
Deborah Luke's is employment
manager for Madison Gas and Electric.
"My job for Madison Gas and Electric
is talent finder and there's a lot of talent,
future talent in this room and I'm here to be
a part of them today.
Utilities for sure and many technical industries are going
to be losing between 30 and 40 percent of their future workers.
And in this state that will cripple many of our
industries. So we need all the support we can
for technical programs in the high schools and at
the secondary post-level because we are not going
to be able to run this state if we don't."
Tech Ed at the high school level is not a new idea.
A generation ago was called shop class and nearly
every home with a high schooler had a bird house
to show for it.
But according to Tim Lawrence,
executive director for a national technical education
organization, Tech Ed has changed with the time.
"It's no longer the wood shop, it's no longer
the student building the bird house.
Students now in construction trades it's
not only this competition but in classes across
Wisconsin are building homes.
They're learning every aspect of putting a
home together from design to construction to sales.
So technical education in Wisconsin and across
America has changed with the times.
This is an economic development issue,
absolutely positively.
American business and industry and the economy in this country
depends on people entering the pipeline with these kinds of
skills." Entering the pipeline with technical education skills.
A commitment to the future of Wisconsin's workforce
can be seen in Hartford.
Tech Ed classes at Hartford Union High are
so popular a 15,000 square foot addition was
completed in 2001 just for technology education.
"A few years ago we had more
students and what we could handle facility-wise
and so they put a 2.9 million dollar referendum
out to the community it passed and so then we're
able to add on, add more equipment more facility
and the students are keeping the classes full.
So our local industry you know is looking for
workers and hopefully we are at least pointing
in the right direction to let them know if that's
something that they want to do after they get out of
high school."
One program generating a lot of interest
beyond the classroom is the vision project.
A student designed and constructed single-family
home. There are other house building projects and
high schools across the state but few are as all encompassing
as the Hartford project.
Beyond the construction itself
there are students participating through
classes and architecture, cabinet making, interior
design, landscaping, and marketing.
"Give some background of the crews,
terms of the carpenters that were involved."
Vital to the success of the vision project is the
involvement of the Hartford Rotary.
"They finance the project and so the
economic times sometimes don't allow high schools
to take a gamble like this to put out money to
build a house right now, the market's good and we're
selling the homes but there have been bad times where the houses
haven't sold and the Rotary is willing to take that
chance, put up a house and if they generate a
profit you know that's great for them but if they have to absorb
a loss you know then they will absorb the loss and there's no
risk on the high schools part."
Of course the school and local business aren't the only
ones benefiting from this project.
Student Cody Lumis sums up what he'll
take away from it.
"An experience of lifetime and
a bunch of new friends and just like more knowledge,
it's improvement knowledge and industry a lot."
"I always like doing construction stuff and
actually get a chance to build a whole house from
start to finish and I know where else you could
get an experience like that at school and you get
credit for it too so that's nice."
"I'm a believer that employability skills is
something that every teacher should be teaching.
Not every one of my students is going to go
into the construction business but yet I think
they all need to learn the value of putting in hours
time for hours pay and I hope that just by having
the kids be responsible for their actions even
though I'm out here talking to you right now I have
no doubt that they're working inside and trying
to do the job that needs to be done."
"You know you can go anywhere to any
construction company and they tell them that you've
been in this program and you can pretty much
guarantee the job."
"Our next story takes us to
Forest County.
That's where the Molec Chippewa tribe
is struggling to save a tradition that goes
back for generations.
Independent producer Michelle Danforth has that story."
Chippewa oral tradition dating back to the 1800s
tells of a prophecy that the Chippewa people
were to travel west from the northeast to where the
food grew on the water.
The food was wild rice.
Eventually many Chippewa tribes stayed in northern
Wisconsin. The Sakagin tribe settled near what
is now called rice lake.
Native Americans regard wild rice or monoman as
the sacred gift of their chosen ground.
It said that wild rice has always been generous
to those who gather and use her in a respectful way.
Wild rice was and still is an
important element of the Sakagin Molec Chippewa
tribe. Each summer the rice chiefs check the
condition of the rice beds and then decide in August
which lakes to open for harvesting.
"And then when we get them harvesting
we take our wild rice in this year.
We take and we put it out to dry.
We dry it in the sun.
We usually leave it for a couple
two or three days and when it's once dried then
we fan it out with the birch bark baskets.
We get them fanning it then we
patch it.
We patch it over the fire and stir it
until it starts to pop a little bit like pop when
we will take and fan it again then we'll put it
in the tub and we'll get it up, get on it and we
will roll on it with our feet to get the hulls off."
The rice lake harvest is a tradition that goes back for
generations. A tradition now in trouble.
"It used to be the whole thing used to
be just full of rice by 60 tall all the way across."
According to the chiefs, in recent years the rice
crop has diminished to only 30% of what it once was.
The rice chiefs and the tribe's environmental
department were looking for answers and turned to
a biologist to see if a solution could be found.
"They were complaining that the
rice lake wasn't producing as much rice as it had in the
past and specifically that we're losing rice to the lily pads.
I took and looked at a lot of historical aerial
photographs of this lake probably over the past 50-60
years. A couple of things started jumping out.
The size of where the lily pads
were growing was getting a lot bigger and the other
thing was that the kathill stand where swamp creek,
creek enters the lake had expanded in size and
it looked to me that it was blocking that flow
and diverting it straight out the channels."
Swamp creek is a small stream that
feeds into rice lake and mole lake tribal biologists
Justin Peltier believed that the flow of water
from the creek was crucial to the lake's rice crop.
To prove the theory, biologists recreated a
water study from 1977.
Biodegradable fluorescent dye was poured into swamp creek
and Peltier then took to the air to see how the
dye flowed into rice lake.
Water samples at locations around the lake were taken
throughout the week to see if the dye would register.
"There's a huge difference between the health of the
wild rice that had flow was a lot healthier than
the rice that showed their no effects of the
flow from swamp creek."
Based on the results of the study, the tribe set
into motion a plan to restore the flow of water
from swamp creek into rice lake.
"When we decided to cut that kathill channel through that
that kathill stand and hopefully restore that flow like it was
in '77 and hopefully we'll get the rice bed back to
historically high levels in the '50s where this
lake was probably 90 to 95% covered with wild rice."
The tribe also removed both lever and concrete
dams from swamp creek
and began the delicate process of manually cutting
lily pads one by one and hauling them off the lake.
In June of 2004, the tribe repeated the water
study. This time there was evidence that the dye was
able to travel through swamp creek and into rice lake.
Evidence that the flow from the creek to the lake
is on its way to being restored.
"One thing about wild rice, it's a season
by season.
It's a weather to cooperate with everything
and should the rice really take hold.
It's like now today.
It's that I'm well satisfied
with what I'm seeing on here.
It's really for us elders to see something like
this here is that we will believe in something
behind once we leave this earth and hopefully that we
have people that carry on the responsibility."
We'll bring you an update on the status of rice lake
after the next harvest season.
That's our program for tonight.
You can go to our website at www.orgslashinwisconsin for more
information on all of our stories.
Once there you can also find transcripts
of previous programs and streaming video of past
reports. Again, the address is www.orgslashinwisconsin.
Meanwhile, you won't find us on the air next week.
We'll be taking a break while Wisconsin Public
Television features some special programming.
We'll be back with another new episode in two weeks
on Thursday, December 16th.
Until then, we leave you with a trip to Whitefish
Dunes and Door County.
For in Wisconsin, I'm Patty Lo.
See you next time.
[wind howling]
Major funding for in Wisconsin is provided by the people of a
lion's energy who bring safe, reliable and environmentally
friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods, and life
in Wisconsin running smoothly.
A lion's energy, offering energy-saving ideas
on the web.
[wind howling]