Winter (NEW!)

Always Downstream
Winter 2014
Friends of Lower Muskingum River
Inside this issue:
It’s Our
Responsibility
Buy Your Tickets
Now
Voyage RUFUS
PUTNAM: Part 1
2
In February, 2011 the Friends
of Lower Muskingum River
(FLMR) received a grant from
the Ohio Department of
Natural Resources, in
partnership with the
Muskingum Watershed
Conservancy District, to
achieve the goal of writing a
Watershed Action Plan for the
Southern Watershed of the
Muskingum River.
2
3
The Elizabeth
Anne
4
Upcoming Events
6
We are happy to announce
that, 3 years later, this goal
has been successfully
completed!
For FLMR, and all the people
living in the southern
watershed, that’s a big deal.
A little bit about the plan and
the Southern Watershed…
Watershed Action Plan
A Watershed Action Plan
(WAP) is a comprehensive
plan for maintaining and
improving the health of a
watershed.
What’s a Watershed?
A Watershed is a an area of
land that contains a common
set of streams and rivers that
all drain into a single larger
body of water, such as the
Muskingum River.
The map to the right shows
the boundary of the Southern
Watershed, which extends
from the City of Marietta at
the southern end, just north of
Lowell to the stream known
as Big Run.
Big Run
Run
Cat Creek
Cat
CreekCreek
Rainbow
Devol
Run
Run
Map of the Southern Watershed
Cont’d. on pg. 5
During January and February
of this year, six bald eagles
were “hanging out” at Luke
Chute.
Eagles at Luke Chute
In recent years, eagles
frequently have been seen
flying up and down this
stretch of the Muskingum,
and there is a well known
eagle nest near Stockport.
This year, for about three
weeks from mid-January to
early February, a group of
eagles was present most of
the time at or near Luke
Chute.
Photo by Dr. Dave McShaffrey
It seemed to be the same
group every day. There were
two adults, with their classic
white heads and tails. The
other four, not yet mature,
lacked the distinctive white
markings. Two of them had a
mottled appearance, with
some white plumage, and
were probably in their third
or fourth year (an
experienced birder could tell
more accurately). The other
two were solid dark brown,
indicating that they were in
their first year. Bald eagles
reach full maturity in four to
five years.
My house overlooks Luke
Chute dam, and my nephew,
Ty Williams, has a good view
(in winter) of a huge
sycamore on the river bank
and of the big trees on the
island. We have enjoyed a lot
of eagle watching this winter.
Cont’d. on pg. 5
Friends of Lower Muskingum River
"Water, water everywhere nor
any drop to drink".
It’s Our Responsibility
This quote from The Rime of
the Ancient Mariner must have
occurred to many people
lately.
because of numerous 'valley
fills' resulting from mountain
top removal as a method to
extract coal from the earth.
A resource that we take for
granted should seem all the
more precious to us now while
witnessing the dilemma of
over 300,000 folks in West
Virginia suddenly deprived of
a dependable, safe water
supply.
Access to a safe, reliable
source of drinking water is
critical to a healthy economy
as well as a healthy
population. Each of us should
do a little soul-searching about
not only the sources of our
own drinking water, but how
our actions may affect it.
Unlike similar events that
occur across our country all
too regularly, but not as
widely known because of
smaller spills, holding dam
failures or pipeline failures,
the scale of this leak and the
consequences should have
everyone's attention.
The most obvious problems
occur with those systems that
get their water from rivers.
Even if there is an unreported
spill there is usually a change
in appearance, odor or even
dead fish that raises an alarm.
It should also be noted that the
reason so many people and
businesses relied on one
source of water is because
water quality had already been
compromised in a large area
It should be obvious there are
some uses for which stream
terraces are not suitable. If
facilities such as storage tanks
for hazardous chemicals were
further away from the
stream, there might be more
opportunity to contain a leak
or spill.
Across the country, hundreds
of thousands of acres have
been protected from such uses
by their owners by placing a
conservation easement on
them. Land Trusts such as
FLMR provide a service to
those owners: while retaining
ownership, landowners entrust
the land trusts to legally
protect their land in perpetuity.
An important benefit to
society is that in so doing,
future inappropriate use of the
land is prohibited.
Those of us whose water
comes from wells are less
likely to be aware of
contamination of the aquifer
from which it comes. Yet,
spills and infrastructure
failures and casual observance
of good stewardship can have
long-lasting effects.
Two wells in the Marietta well
field were contaminated a
number of years ago by a
chemical from an apparently
unknown source and now these
wells must be continuously
pumped and the water discarded
to prevent the plume of contaminated water from reaching
the producing wells that provide
the city water supply.
Every drop of contaminant
casually dumped on the ground
is likely to end up in someone's
drinking glass some day.
Whether we are too casual
about our use of cleaners,
petroleum products, old
medicines, etc. (responsible
disposal is possible at
Household Hazardous Waste
Collection Days) or
irresponsibly ranting about
businesses being overregulated, we are affecting the
quality of water for future
generations.
Marilyn Ortt
FLMR, President
Buy Your Tickets Now!
On August 10, 2014 during the
awards ceremony of the 6th
Annual Mighty Muskingum
River Raft Regatta, we will be
drawing the names of four
lucky winners. The top winner
will be taking home a beautiful
6ft x 7ft quilt that was handmade by Charlotte Robe and
depicts the Muskingum River.
Raffle tickets are only $5 each
and can be purchased by either
contacting an FLMR board
member, calling 740-374-4170
or online at
www.muskingumriver.org.
Page 2
Raffle Prizes
1st - 6ft x 7ft handmade quilt
named “Luke Chute”
2nd - FLMR Rain Barrel
3rd - 2 handmade walking sticks
4th - Blue Thumb Guide to
Rain Gardens
Quilt “Luke Chute”, donated by Charlotte Robe
Voyage RUFUS PUTNAM: Part I
The city of Marietta was
pleased when Captain
John Green announced
that he was going to
name his fine new
steamboat THE RUFUS
PUTNAM.
Although it had happened
69 years earlier, the
memory was so vivid that
Woodbridge seemed to
be living it again.
"This is a moment of
intense excitement,'' he
wrote. "The command is
given; all around - above,
below - comes the sound
of hammers as the last
impediments are knocked
away. The workmen
spring aside. . . according
to custom, a bottle of
wine is broken over her
prow as she slides toward
the river. Will she retain
her proud carriage, or
will she flounder and
sink? But look - there
she sets, securely on the
water!”
He intended to take the
RUFUS PUTNAM up the
Muskingum River all the
way to Zanesville, in
spite of warnings that
such a trip was
impossible.
Every available space was
taken even though accommodations were said to be
adequate, but not luxurious.
The passenger list was
impressive. The long list
Steamboats routinely
included Mr. and Mrs.
The year was 1823, and
plied the waters of the
even though the old
Nahum Ward and their
Ohio
River,
but
so
far,
two children, Oliver
general himself was
the Muskingum– a river
Dodge and his daughter
almost 85 years old, he
well
known
for
its
swift
Nancy, Judge Joseph
was probably among the
current, shallow waters,
Wood (described as "that
crowd gathering down at
numerous rocks and other fine old wheel-horse of
the Whitney boatyards to
obstructions - had been
democracy''), several
watch the launching of
traveled only by canoes
members of the prominent
his namesake.
and flatboats
Nye and Barker families,
along with historian/
George W. Woodbridge
While he bragged fondly physician Sam Hildreth,
preserved the excitement
that the PUTNAM was
and Colonel John Mills
of the event when he
trim
and
light
enough
to
and his "intended'', Miss
wrote an article for the
travel on the morning
Deborah Wilson.
Western Christian
dew,
he
had,
never-theAdvocate many years
less, decided not to
The use of a steam whistle
later. "The morning was
A wild hurrah goes up,
demonstrate this feat, but to signal the approach of a
fine,'' he tells us,
rather, had waited for
steam-boat was not yet in
"collected there were old her captain shouting,
"See? She swims! She
high water, the after-math use upon the rivers, so the
men and young, women
swims like a duck!''
of a winter "freshet.''
RUFUS PUTNAM was
of every age and a
equipped with a small
number of little children,
While it might be true
On a winter morning in
cannon at her prow.
all talking and laughing.
that the 75 foot, 70 ton
1824 Captain Green
Perched upon a huge
sidewheeler couldn't
decided the time was
On January 9, 1824, the
underpinning of posts
compare with some of the right for the Zanesville
little steamer cast off at
and heavy timbers,
boats
moving
up
and
excursion.
10 AM amid great
resting upon slanting
ceremony and headed
parallel rails, there sat the down the Ohio, Captain
John Green and his
The crowd gathered to
north, up the Muskingum..
RUFUS PUTNAM,
business partner, Oliver
see the PUTNAM off was
waiting for the word
Dodge, were well satistwice as large and twice
which would send her
For part two see the next
fied with their $10,000
as excited as those who
into the water and into
issue
of Always Downstream!
investment. And Green
had been present at her
life.”
had big plans for the little launching. They watched
steamer.
enviously as her
Louise Zimmer
passengers boarded.
Noted author and historian
Page 3
Friends of Lower Muskingum River
When this winter’s record
snowfall and cold temperatures disappear, one of the
rites of spring will be hundreds
of boats, of all sizes and
descriptions, being put up for
sale in the area along the lower
Muskingum River.
The ads will list watercraft of
all types, from tiny 10-footlong johnboats to pontoon
fishing platforms to houseboats and monster, 30-footlong-plus cabin cruisers.
The Elizabeth Anne
So what do you do when
you’ve just beaten the odds
and the Grim Reaper? If
you’re Dr. Downing and his
wife of 16 years now, you
build your own sternwheeler
from scratch.
“When I beat the cancer, I
said to myself, ‘Well, I’m
going to live, so I’m going to
do something (special),” he
said. “And working to build
the sternwheeler became like
therapy.”
Only a handful of the boats for
sale, and possibly just a single
one in this area, will carry a
description like the following:
“One hundred and ten-feetlong, 18-feet-wide, 17-feethigh sternwheeler, with a
Cummins 590 diesel engine
and a fully hydraulic operating
system; can comfortably host
up to 50 passengers and has
been used for three weddings.”
This sternwheeler, owned by
Dr. and Mrs. Ron and Cindy
Downing, also has a unique
personal history to it. For
starters, it is a “home-made”
sternwheeler.
Dr. Downing, a semi-retired
optometrist with a practice in
McConnelsville and
Zanesville, was told that his
Stage Four cancer gave him
only a few months to live back
in 1992.
“In fact,” he said, “the doctors
said I only had a 10 percent
chance of living as long as six
more months.”
But he beat the odds, and after
a year returned to practicing
optometry, though his battle
with cancer left him so tired
that he could work only parttime at first.
Page 4
Wheeling, W. Va. “And,” she
said, “we’ve lived on it for up
to a week at a time.”
“You could,” Dr. Downing
added, “take it all the way down
to New Orleans and out into the
Gulf.”
Complete with heat and air conditioning, a full kitchen and
living room as well as two bedrooms and one and a half bathrooms, including a shower, this
sternwheeler has hosted more
than a few
family-andfriends parties.
“We’ve had people get
married on it, and I think we’ve had
at least three wedding receptions,” the optometrist said.
“The Elizabeth Anne”
For sale by Dr. and Mrs. Ron and Cindy Downing
“The first thing we did was
buy the hull, which was dry
docked in Lowell, and bring it
up to Malta,” Dr. Downing
said. Then, for the next year,
he and between 15 to 20
friends worked on building the
sternwheeler, which was on
blocks alongside the
Muskingum River just
upstream from the Veterans
Memorial Bridge.
“People would stop by and
gather around and watch us
working on the boat,” Dr.
Downing said. “We had a big
crowd there when we finished
it and had two cranes lift it up
and put it in the water.” That
launch and initial voyage
occurred on July 8, 1995.
Once the Downings launched
the boat, their sternwheeler
became not only a source of
fun and several lengthy trips
down the Muskingum and
Ohio rivers, but also a place to
spend time with friends and
family.
“I’d say that over the years,
we’ve had at least 300
different people along on the
Elizabeth Anne,” Dr. Downing
said.
“We’ve had many parties on
it and trips to Marietta, and we
participated in the
sternwheeler festivals there,”
he added. Their longest trip on
their sternwheeler, Cindy said,
was down the Muskingum and
up the Ohio River to
Both Dr. and Cindy Downing
said they decided to sell their
sternwheeler after cruising on it
for nearly 20 years because
their other outdoors hobby -competing in local, regional and
national tractor pulls and races - is taking up more of their free
time.
“We compete with a 1954 Ford
590 (tractor) in the antique
class,” the doctor said. He
added that Cindy is as involved
with and as passionate about
both their sternwheeler cruising
and tractor competitions as he
is, and she agreed.
“We do everything together”
Cindy said. “It’s like we’re
‘joined at the hip.’ ”
The Downings said they won’t
formally list their sternwheeler
for sale until late spring or early
summer because they want to
refurbish part of the living
quarters first. And, they said,
before they let go of their handmade sternwheeler, they are
definitely going to take it out
with friends for one or two last
cruises on the Muskingum.
Cont’d. on pg. 5
Meet the FLMR officers,
board members, and staff
Watershed Action Plan
Cont’d from pg. 1
The Southern WAP includes
an extensive inventory of
this region’s water resources
and identifies and evaluates
problems within the
watershed. The plan then
details goals to protect the
high quality resources, and
actions to address identified
problem areas.
As was mentioned earlier,
having this WAP is a big
deal. Not only does this plan
give our policy makers and
public administrators
The adults spent a lot of time
perched in the big sycamore,
while the younger birds were
cruising up and down the
river. Ty noticed that the
eagles seem to prefer
sycamores over other kinds
of trees.
Although this might appear to
be a family group, it almost
certainly was not. It is known
that young eagles generally
disperse after their first year,
and that young and adults do
not migrate together. Groups
of eagles feeding together are
seen elsewhere, but this is the
Inquiries about the boat can
be made by calling the
Downings at 740-962-6440.
“It’s time to let it go, because we want to travel more
and we’re spending more
time in the tractor competitions,” Dr. Downing said.
Cindy Downing said they’ll
always have hundreds of
specific water quality goals to
reach in our area, but it also
opens up funding doors for
those administrators to help
reach those goals.
Grants like the Ohio EPA
Surface Water Improvement
Fund, or Ohio Administrative
Code, Section 319 funds can
now be applied for by
administrators within the
Southern Watershed because
this plan was endorsed by the
State of Ohio.
As FLMR looks ahead to our
future, we have every
intention of implementing the
actions outlined in the
Southern WAP as we work
towards our never ending
goal of “preserving,
protecting and maintaining
the physical, chemical and
biological integrity of the
Muskingum River”
Download the Southern WAP at
www.muskingumriver.org
Jesse Daubert
Watershed Coordinator, FLMR
Eagles at Luke Chute
Cont’d from pg. 1
first time Ty and I have seen
it.
It is generally believed that
eagles mate for life; however,
according to the Ohio
Division of Wildlife, current
research shows that this may
not be entirely true. Bald
eagles may live for up to
thirty years in the wild, but
usual life expectancy is 15 –
20 years.
On several occasions, Ty saw
an eagle swoop down to the
surface of the water, but
never actually saw it catch a
fish. Fish are the bald eagle’s
primary food. They also eat
a lot of road kill and other
carrion, and they prey on
waterfowl and small
mammals.
Eagles are believed to have a
lifting power of about four
pounds.
The Elizabeth Anne
Cont’d from pg. 4
great memories of cruising on
the Elizabeth Anne.
“We’ve had so many people,
and every type of person, on
it,” Dr. Downing added.
“We’ve had senators and
governors and state representatives, firefighters and policemen, kids on school outings and so many people we
know.
Officers
President - Marilyn Ortt
Vice President - Katy Lustofin
Secretary - Doug Albaugh
Treasurer - Susan Corcoran
Board of Directors
Doug Albaugh
Dave Blount
Susan Corcoran
Elin Jones
John Lee
Katy Lustofin
Rick Mayle
Marilyn Ortt
Quincy Robe
Kristyn Robinson
Staff
Jesse Daubert
The use of DDT and other
pesticides in the years
following World War II
nearly wiped out the bald
eagle, along with other birds
of prey. By 1979, there were
only four breeding pairs in
Ohio.
With regulation of pesticides,
the eagle population has
recovered dramatically. In
2013, the Ohio Division of
Wildlife estimated that there
were 190 nests in the state.
Doug Albaugh
FLMR, Board Member
added, referring to both
building this sternwheeler from
scratch and cruising on it.
“We’ve had a lot of fun on it
with many, many people.”
Jim Konkoly
FLMR Volunteer
“It’s been a labor of love,” he
Page 5
Newsletter layout by Jesse Daubert
Watershed Coordinator, FLMR
Friends of Lower Muskingum River
348 Muskingum Drive
Marietta, OH 45750
We’re on the Web!
www.muskingumriver.org
Help Support FLMR
By Recycling!
Give us your old Inkjet
Cartridges, Laser/Toner
Cartridges and Cell
Phones so we can recycle
them and raise money.
Upcoming Events
Presentation: “Stream Team Volunteer Monitoring”
Thursday, March 27, 2014 at 7:00 pm
Join us at Marietta College in the Rickey Science Center, room 150, as Watershed
Coordinator, Jesse Daubert discusses data the has been collected by the Stream
Team Volunteers.
FLMR’s 1st Monthly Potluck of 2014
April 24, 2014 at 6pm at the Luke Chute Conservation Area
6th Annual Mighty Muskingum River Raft Regatta
August 10, 2014 check in at 12pm, shove off at 2pm
Want to become a FLMR member?
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address below!
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Please make checks payable to:
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Mail to:
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P. O. Box 31, Malta, OH 43758