ig changes are underway for the Missouri River floodplain at many places in eastern Nebraska, and the adjacent Iowa and Missouri. Various tracts are being developed to mitigate for channelization that drastically altered the historic Missouri river setting.

Millions of dollars are being spent to buy property and convert it to public fish and wildlife habitat. Project activity dates back a decade, with planning back to the mid-1980s.

For the Omaha District of the Corps of Engineers (COE), the mitigation program cost is $6 million in 2003 and about $10 mil. projected for fiscal year 2004. Overall mitigation project spending was $73,039,000 from fiscal year 1992 to 2002 for the Missouri River from St. Louis to Sioux City. Funding for ancillary programs are provided by the Fish and Wildlife Service, state agencies and the Corps of Engineer's section 1135 program that provides cost-share options. Through the Natural Resources Conservation Service, there are Wetland Reserve Program easements which allow the conversion of crop ground to wetlands.

The first step in the mitigation process is to determine sites with the potential of aquatic habitat restoration. Landowners are contacted, and property purchased from willing sellers. The average cost per acre is about $1,200 or up to $1,800 for crop-ground, said Michael "Mick" Sandine, Natural Resources manager. There are three primary goals:

1) Establish an aquatic connection to the river or backwater.
2) Promote shallow water habitat by erosion activity on the channel banks.
3) Establishing terrestrial habitats.

The goal has been to buy about 2500 acres per year. COE retains ownership of the tracts, but after site preparation, the tracts are licensed to the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission or Iowa Department of Natural Resources. Tracts along the river east of Nebraska in Missouri, are
developed by the Kansas City District and licensed to the Missouri Department of Conservation. The state agencies are then responsible for day-to-day management. Efforts are obviously made to consolidate parcels into hundreds of acres to provide a larger scale for management
schemes.

Habitat settings include shallow water, usually a chute, floodplain reconnected, wetland, prairie and bottomland hardwood habitat types, according to the 2003 annual mitigation project report lists. There is the natural growth woods of value. Each site has a distinct mix of habitats for some fish and many birds.

The management and construction work underway at mitigation sites varies year to year. Any plans are based on options developed at agency coordinating meetings with representatives from the involved federal and state agencies, and non-governmental groups.

During a recent visit to Langdon Bend, plans were made for corn food plots to be planted in what is now a cool-season grassy tract. There has not been a sufficient ingrowth of planted warm season grasses. A neighboring farmer will plant and raise the crop, and keep his share. The government share would be left as food for wild animals. This effort will have no cost to the government.

Hamburg Bend was the first mitigation site in Nebraska, and its work included a pumping station to provide a reliable source of river water to a chute. Waterworks are varied. Earth work is used to configure suitable chutes or to provide low spots that are seasonal habitat. A Corps report describes restoration work for Deroin Bend, across from Indian Cave. A side channel about 3 miles long was opened and native hardwood trees were planted.

Wetland excavation work at Copeland Bend is being done at no cost to the government, the contractor doing the work to get free fill dirt for use elsewhere. Further north, California Bend has an opened side-channel and backwater; so it is noted as "a fine wetland area for lots of different waterfowl," it says in the project annual report.

	Chevron dikes were developed to improve river habitat and to create beneficial uses of dredge material. These structures are placed in the shallow side of the river channel pointing upstream. Their effect is to improve the river channel

A chevron is a new option being used to create riverine sandbar habitat. These rock structures and somewhat shaped like a two-sided triangle with the open end upriver. Sandbars are expected to form down river. The installation of six of these on the inside bends north of the Peru boat ramp, was just finished in November.

Ongoing low-cost options for terrestrial habitat work is creating a distinct habitat mix on the bird-lands. Replanted grass-lands and attempts at plant growth that did not work as intended may now be a dense stand of willow shoots. A grassland planting at Tobacco Island has a tall growth of cottonwoods that survived burning and could create a new area of cottonwood forest in some years.

Creating a 30-acre tract of barren sand is being considered for Tieville Bend, hopefully to provide nesting habitat for the Least Tern and Piping Plover.

Since property acquisition started in the mid-1990s, these are the projects - All open for public use - along the Nebraska stretch of the Missouri river channel, starting south of Sioux City and ending near Rulo:

• Winnebago Bend, Woodbury IA - 1300 acres
• Blackbird Bend, Monona IA - 1718 acres
• Tieville Bend, Monona IA and Burt NE - 1105.19 acres
• Upper Decatur Bend, Monona IA - 642.66 acres
• Middle Decatur Bend, Burt NE - 1330.2 acres
• Louisville Bend, Monona IA - 1095.45 acres
• Soldier Bend, Harrison IA - 248.41 acres
• California Bend, Harrison IA - 420 acres
• Tobacco Island, Cass NE - 1603.63 acres
• Noddleman Island, Mills IA - 1,231.72 acres
• Auldon Bar, Harrison IA - 587.52 acres
• Copeland Bend, Fremont IA - 2105.67 acres
• Hamburg Bend, Otoe NE - 1544.08 acres
• Lower Hamburg Bend, Atchison MO - 2265 acres
• Kansas Bend, Nemaha NE - 1055.96 acres
• Nishnabotna, Atchison MO - 1284 acres
• Langdon Bend, Nemaha NE - 1,311.91 acres
• Deroin Bend, Holt/Atchison MO - 1082 acres
• Corning, Holt MO - 1662 acres
• Thurnau, Holt MO - 1349 acres
• Rush Bottom Bend, Holt MO - 811.2 acres

Total: ca. 25,750 acres (Most Nebraska and Iowa figures are current for November 2003, with other acreages from the January 2003 implementation report.)

There are several especially notable locales with a greater combination of habitat features. The parcels start on the north portion of the Missouri channel, about 20 river miles south of Sioux City.

Snyder and Winnebago bends are in southern Woodbury county, Iowa, and Thurston county, over in Nebraska. Along the floodplain to the north is Browns Lake state park. The Winnebago wetlands were part of a mitigation project in the early 1970s, according to an ACE official.

Near the Nebraska town of Decatur are Blackbird-Tieville-Decatur bends. The river bends about mile 690 include floodplain of the Iowa owned Upper and the Middle Decatur Bend site with land across the river but in Nebraska and our eastern neighbor. Blue Lake WMA and Lewis and Clark State park unit are just a bit further east.

Boyer Chute and Nathans Lake are two mitigation sites, developed by the Fish and Wildlife Service and Omaha-based Papio-Missouri NRD.

The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission recently expanded its Plattsmouth tract to the south, which includes the popular bird spot, Schilling WMA at the celebrated mouth of the Platte river. Just a mile or two to the south of the southern part of the area, is the northern tip of Tobacco Island mitigation site that goes from a bit beyond river mile 585 to 590. To its south end, and readily seen from nearby Queen Hill on the bluff, is Noddleman Island, with a mitigation project site along river mile 583-585.

Another fine complex further down the languid river is at the three-corners area, where Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska boundaries align. Four properties align along nearly 20 miles of the river channel. At the line mark at are Lower Hamburg Bend and Hamburg Bend sites. Adjoining
sites a few miles south, are at the confluence of the Nishnabotna, Kansas Bend and the adjacent Peru Bottoms WMA with hundreds of acres of former wetland reserve farm ground - a site that was crops and is now formerly cultivated - ground with a growth of weeds.

A very interesting bunch of restoration is underway in the river valley vicinity of Indian Cave state park. Two projects across the river in Missouri, to the east of the south portion of the Nebraska property, is the Derion Bend conservation area and which abuts the Corning site
near waterway mile 515. Northward on the Nebraska side is Aspinall Bend WMA at the mouth of the Little Nemaha River, and south of Langdon Bend east of enduring Nemaha. The park vicinity has other mitigation possibilities. A detailed, vivid and so interesting map at the COE project office on Pershing Drive showed a proposed Hemmie Bend place southward, and then north of the park and river birdlands, were options for Lincoln Bend and then onward north to Morgan Bend.

To these, add a few more notable locales already on the Missouri side of the river and a few short miles south. There is Thurnau state wildlife area, and then, east of distant Rulo, is Rush Bottom Bend west of Big Lake state park. Just to the east from there is the ever-interesting and renowned bird haven, Squaw Creek NWR with its variety of habitats.

The days are gone when habitat was not considered, Sandine said. "The COE will continue its efforts to make amends for habitat changes wrought by development of the navigation channel. We are looking to get an additional 30,000 acres in the Omaha district." The project has authorization to obtain 166,750 in the three state area, plus a bit of Kansas.

Changes being wrought to the riverine setting will continue, based on further directives from Congress that will determine the mitigated conditions river future. The focus will continue on opportunities to alter conditions on the floodplain, and being successful in getting wild-land habitat to provide wildlife and recreational opportunities, Sandine said.

The intent is clear on that big wall map at the Pershing Drive office. Its colorful mosaic of present and potential federal mitigation sites and state habitat tracts along the river would be a vast and nearly continual wildland setting. Private conservation groups and lands owned by other public entities can be added to the mix to provide a plethora of places for outdoorists.

Locality maps, aerial photographs and further information is available on the project web-site at nwo.usace.army.mil then to these options:

            1) Recreation     2) Visit lakes    3) Missouri river project    4) Mitigation