Public invited to Capoli Slough Islands restoration project dedication

Lansing, Iowa - Natural Resource Specialist Ray Marinan helps students plant seedlings as part of the St. Paul District's Earth Day activities. The St. Paul District, along with our partners at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Friends of Pool 9, and students from Lansing, Iowa middle school and DeSoto, Wis, high school, spent Earth Day 2016 planting 500 red oak seedlings on one of the recently completed islands in Capoli Slough in Pool 9 of the Upper Mississippi River. The group also implemented a trial to determine effectiveness of fertilizer and deer repellant tablets on seedling growth and survival. The different colored flags indicate the different types of treatments the seedlings received. Part of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Upper Mississippi River Restoration Program, the Capoli Slough project is a side channel and island complex located on the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi River navigation channel in Pool 9, about five miles downstream of Lansing, Iowa. The site is in the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge. Many of the natural islands bordering the navigation channel and extending into the backwater have eroded and many are disappearing. Erosion from wave action and main channel flows is reducing the size of the wetland complex, resulting in the loss of aquatic vegetation and the shallow protected habitats important for the survival of many species of fish and wildlife.

Lansing, Iowa - Natural Resource Specialist Ray Marinan helps students plant seedlings as part of the St. Paul District's Earth Day activities. The St. Paul District, along with our partners at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Friends of Pool 9, and students from Lansing, Iowa middle school and DeSoto, Wis, high school, spent Earth Day 2016 planting 500 red oak seedlings on one of the recently completed islands in Capoli Slough in Pool 9 of the Upper Mississippi River. The group also implemented a trial to determine effectiveness of fertilizer and deer repellant tablets on seedling growth and survival. The different colored flags indicate the different types of treatments the seedlings received. Part of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Upper Mississippi River Restoration Program, the Capoli Slough project is a side channel and island complex located on the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi River navigation channel in Pool 9, about five miles downstream of Lansing, Iowa. The site is in the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge. Many of the natural islands bordering the navigation channel and extending into the backwater have eroded and many are disappearing. Erosion from wave action and main channel flows is reducing the size of the wetland complex, resulting in the loss of aquatic vegetation and the shallow protected habitats important for the survival of many species of fish and wildlife.

Lansing, Iowa - The St. Paul District, along with our partners at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Friends of Pool 9, and students from Lansing, Iowa middle school and DeSoto, Wis, high school, spent Earth Day 2016 planting 500 red oak seedlings on one of the recently completed islands in Capoli Slough in Pool 9 of the Upper Mississippi River.

Bulldozers move dredge material to create islands in the Mississippi River as part of the Capoli Slough Habitat Rehabilitation and Enhancement Project.