The Land Conservancy and William C. Schock Clean Water Conservancy awards were presented to Confluence Partnership, and the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District on June 7th by the Open Space Council for the St. Louis Region at their annual awards banquet.
The Open Space Council Land Conservancy Award is given to individuals and organizations showing an [...]

By Jo Schaper
Tomorrow morning, when Michael Clark of Big Muddy Adventures, John Ruskey of Quapaw Canoe Company, David Hanson, adventure journalist, and Mark Peoples, a 1Mississippi River Guide intern, put their paddles into the Bourbeuse River at the Union, Missouri boat ramp, after having begun in Washington, MO, and [...]

Jo’s Grandma Schaper (who was from West Alton) always said the Missouri Point, that jut of land just above the Missouri-Mississippi confluence, was for the birds.
She didn’t live long enough to discover how right she was. That area, once bottomland farmland, has now been re-visioned as a wetlands and Mississippi Flyway Bird Sanctuary, [...]

Joe Jerek, communications person for the Missouri Dept. of Conservation passed along these two YouTube links on hellbender conservation efforts. One is from the St. Louis Zoo:

And the other is from Shepherd of the Hills Hatchery at the foot of Table Rock Dam:

Enjoy.

Easternmost leg of the Katy Trail to open April 2; opening fraught with long delays.
by Jo Schaper
It’s been a long time coming. Twenty-one years after the first ribbon was cut, at 10:30 tomorrow morning, Governor Jay Nixon, his wife Georgeanne and DNR-Division of State Parks Director Bill Bryan will open the easternmost leg of [...]

Cruising the Net this morning, Jo found this story about an 83 year old man, Ben Staurowsky, who went out on Mississippi River ice near Dow, IL, (Jersey County, near St. Louis) to rescue two deer.

by Jo Schaper
I’m glad it’s over, and apparently good sense prevailed.
I’m not a big-time gambler. When riverboat gambling showed up in Missouri,
I went a time or two, expecting some sort of historical recreation of the showboat packet days, a Midwest version of the nickel poker establishments in Deadwood, South Dakota. It was really obvious [...]

By Jo Schaper
The Missouri Gaming Commission awarded the final casino license to Isle of Capri Corporation of Creve Coeur, who submitted plans for a $125 million riverboat casino at Cape Girardeau this morning Dec. 1. Further details are available
in these linked stories at STLToday and the Southeast Missourian. Last November, voters in Cape [...]

Usually, Traveler Country news waits until after breakfast, but not so this morning. This news item wafted over the air while Jo was waking up:
EPA sued over Missouri streams.
The Coalition for the Environment, a St. Louis based environmental activist group, had been working with EPA and Missouri Dept. of Natural Resources to enact water [...]