Oxbow Updates

A Gift from Heaven

(from Wetland Matters, May-June, 2008)

We have received another gift from the estate of Jinny(Wiseman)Witte. This gift apparently comes from Heaven since Jinny has been our own personal angel since her death last August. First she left us a share of her charitable trust amounting to over  $100,000 which the Board has reserved to fund nature education in the Tristate area in honor of Jinny and her first husband, Art Wiseman. Recently, Jinny's estate was divided and Oxbow, Inc. received an endowment package worth over $1,500,000.

Jinny set up the endowment package so that it was to remain under the control of investment bankers for 10 years following her death. Among the restrictions are that Oxbow, Inc. will receive the interest and dividends generated by the fund on a quarterly basis during the year.  In addition, Oxbow, Inc. may annually withdraw 5% of the value of the fund if we desire. At the end of the 10 years the entire fund is controlled by Oxbow, Inc.

This gift has come to us with some very wise rules of use and gives us 10 years to learn how to be wise stewards of an invested endowment. Since we have never before managed funds other than through a money market account we may need all of those 10 years that Jinny has provided to learn.

An endowment of this size goes a long way to assuring the perpetuity of the Organization. One of the greatest threats to organizations such as Oxbow, Inc. is loss of mission, loss of member support, and finally loss of sufficient funding to remain alive. Properly managed, the income from this fund could go a long way toward assuring permanent stability for the organization long into the future.           

Our mission remains unchanged and clear – protect and improve the floodplain at the confluence of the Great Miami and the Ohio Rivers.  We have been extraordinarily successful but there are still hundreds of acres of the floodplain needing protection. Our member support is strong but needs to grow. Many of our members joined in the first years of the organiza­tion and many have moved aw

With the aid of a grant from the Earl and Florence Simmonds Foundation, Oxbow, Inc. has rented its first ever home. The store front is located at 301 Walnut St. in downtown Lawrenceburg, IN. (See photo page 6) Oxbow is renting the store front from the Knights of Co­lumbus (K of C), another charitable organization. The K of C use the rent to maintain the building which also con­tains their offices and their meeting room.  

A grant from Mainstreet Lawrenceburg allowed the K of C to remodel the storefront with new carpet and to repaint the interior. They also constructed a new wall at our request that separates the front half of the store from the back half. We will use the back half of the store front as the office for Oxbow, Inc. while the front will be used for meetings and for public education.

Already we are collecting the various materials stored in the closets and basements of Oxbow members. We are soliciting donations of office furniture and mate­rials (see list below if you have material to donate). Some donations have been offered and we will be busy over the next few months putting this all together. Cur­rently we hope to have a grand opening sometime in Sep­tember 2008 and be able to begin educational activities using the office as the base.

It Was a Long Hot Summer

by Jon Seymour

 I had more than one call this summer.  They all started about the same way.  “Have you seen the level of the lake and all the dead fish?”  The answer, of course, was yes.  Then I would try to explain why these things are normal and not to worry about the Oxbow. 

 We need to go back a few years to 1847 when Oxbow Lake was the river bed of the Great Miami River .  A bustling little town of Hardinsburg nestled on a high bluff at the edge of the river.  City fathers had high hopes of the town becoming a more important city than Lawrenceburg which was down stream from Hardinsburg and more susceptible to flooding.  Dreams of becoming an important river port were dashed in 1847 when a raging flood on the Great Miami River changed the course of the river to its present river bed 1 and ½ miles away in a different state.  Hardinsburg was high and dry.  The town gradually disappeared and became the combination of cement operations, trailer park, and auto salvage yard that constitute the current north entrance to the Oxbow area.

The long curving lake formed when a river cuts a new channel is called an oxbow from the similarity in shape between the lake and the harness placed on an ox.  Over the years multiple floods gradually silted in the old river bed and probably each year the lake would form in the winter and spring and dry up during the dry summer.  Why would the lake dry each year?  The water table under the flood plain is connected to the Ohio River by an underground layer of gravel.  As the water level drops in the Ohio the level of Oxbow Lake also drops.  Prior to 1938 the Ohio River would drop to a pool level of 12-14 feet Cincinnati in the summer and in some very dry years would nearly dry up too.  This was unacceptable to barge traffic and was also a function of poor dam structure that could not control large floods in the Ohio Valley .  Arial photos from 1937 show the entire Oxbow Lake as a corn field except for the southwest edge (the high bank) which contained a narrow strip of trees.

To control floods and assure year round barge traffic a series of dams was built along the Ohio River .  These dams raised the pool level of the Ohio to 26 feet at Cincinnati . With the construction of I-275 the natural outlet of Oxbow Lake was “adjusted” to flow under the new Highway.  Oxbow Lake surface is probably about 30 feet Cincinnati and in normal summers the amount of rain in the floodplain just about balances the flow of water out the bottom of the lake through the gravel beds.  This year there was no where near enough rain and the water table kept dropping toward the 26 feet of the Ohio River . 

Morris Mercer always told me that the Oxbow began to flood at 30 feet Cincinnati . I know he was right.  The fact that the lake can dry up was known.  I had many folks tell me that this same thing happened about 20 years ago.  The lake will recover.  The first flood will recharge the water levels and bring in new fish to populate the lake.  Given the number of dead carp that may not be such a bad thing!  Juno Pond will connect again with Oxbow Lake and all the fish waiting in Juno Pond will be free to roam.  For that matter Mercer Pond connects to cement plant pond which will connect to Juno Pond as the water rises.  The heron, egrets, and even a stray pelican have benefited as the low levels concentrating the fish in Oxbow Lake and making for easy feeding.  The Vultures were ecstatic.  Part of the beauty of the Oxbow is the variety of habitats available.  Cormorants and herons moved over to Osprey Lake and Mercer Pond.  Egrets congregated in the ponds of the Conservancy District.  If one place was not to their liking they just looked around and found another.  In all cases the Great Miami River and the Ohio River were only short flights from the oxbow.  The beauty of nature is that it is a powerful force that can take care of itself if we human beings do not get in the way.

Morris Mercer Receives Environmental Educator Award
at
 Earth Day Celebrations at Sawyer Point

April 17, 2004

Describe what measures have been taken to protect the environment by the nominee.
In 1985 Morris Mercer and two other individuals became aware of a threat to turn the floodplain at the mouth of the Great Miami River into a barge port. This historic flood plain was a major stop for thousands of migrating shorebirds and waterfowl and the summer home to the Cincinnati area’s largest concentration of wading birds. They called a meeting of several of the prominent conservationists in the Cincinnati area that resulted in the formation of Oxbow, Inc. Over the next 19 years Oxbow, Inc. was able to stop the development of the area for a barge port and set about the business of purchasing land and conservation easements. Morris assumed the role of inspirational leadership for the organization serving in many offices during the last 19 years. Perhaps the most important role Morris filled was that of speaker. Morris became a combination ambassador, educator, crusader and sage for Oxbow, Inc. Over the years he has been an invited speaker for hundreds of organizations, led dozens of outdoor nature hikes for K-12 school groups, and has lectured graduate level classes on the importance of community efforts for habitat preservation. His bimonthly column "Field Notes" in the newsletter of Oxbow, Inc. reaches 900 subscribers including many elected officials and officials of government agencies in both Indiana and Ohio. "Field Notes", a compilation of current observation, memories of past years, and lessons to be learned, is year after year the most praised feature in the newsletter.

What environmental problem has been addressed?
Education of the young to protect their natural heritage and to pass that heritage on to their children and others they meet along the course of their life is the greatest challenge of environmental protection. If the young do not learn to embrace the challenge of stewardship for the environment all other actions we take are useless. How we teach others to value nature and how they pass that on is the most vital activity we can undertake. Those that are talented at it, like Morris, generate a sense of awe, wonder, curiosity, inquisitiveness, and pride in preserving nature. What seems strange becomes familiar, what seems alien becomes comfortable, what seems worthless becomes treasured, and what was invisible becomes an open book to read and explore.

Describe what measurable results have been derived from the nominee's activities.
The organization that Morris helped form started as about 20 individual in a room passing a hat to attain enough money to incorporate as a 501(c)3 charitable organization. Through his efforts and those of many others he brought to the organization, Oxbow, Inc. has been able to purchase over 700 acres of the Great Miami/Ohio River floodplain and acquire an additional 260 acres of conservation easements. The organization grew to currently having 900 members who are the owners of this remarkable private nature conservancy. Protection of over 1000 acres on the Ohio side of the floodplain has been achieved through partnership with the Hamilton County Parks System. While over a thousand acres still remains to be acquired, amazingly the protected acreage is the majority of the floodplain. Morris’s talents as a speaker and educator are largely responsible for the large membership and public support. Former President of Oxbow, Inc., Norma Flannery said, "When Morris would go out and speak the memberships would just flow in." Morris was recently honored by the Oxbow, Inc. Board of Directors. Fittingly the honor named Morris – Mr. Oxbow, the Soul of the Oxbow.

Audubon as in John James At the Oxbow 
by|
Mike Busam 

Cincinnati can be proud that it helped John James Audubon begin his  quest to create life-sized paintings of all of North America's birds. If he hadn't been so miserable in Cincinnati, if his job at the Western Museum (now the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History) hadn't turned out to be a dud, if his wife hadn't found their living conditions in the city deplorable, if the family Audubon felt hadn't reached the end of their collective rope, which was made worse by the loss of two young daughters within two years of each other, Audubon might never have been driven to take the desperate measure of leaving his family for a lengthy and risky journey of discovery to New Orleans, and we might not have Audubon's masterpiece, The Birds of America. 

To be fair, Audubon also received some of his first public acclaim for an exhibit of his bird drawings in Cincinnati, and this must have given him encouragement to begin the work necessary for his ambitious project. With nothing to lose and a string of personal and financial failures behind him, including a stint in debtor's prison, Audubon left Cincinnati for New Orleans via the Ohio and Mississippi rivers with his teenage assistant Joseph Mason on October 12, 1820. In Audubon's Mississippi River Journal, which covers Audubon's experiences from October 1820 through December 1821, Audubon spends a considerable amount of time recording the birdlife he saw and studied -- as well as shot and often ate--during his journey to New Orleans and the time he spent in Louisiana, where he tried to make a living as a teacher. 

On October 14, 1820, on the third day of his journey, Audubon records a visit he made to an area near and dear to Oxbow members and supporters: 

"After an early Breakfast We took to the Woods I say We because Joseph Mason, Capt Cummings & Myself I believe Are always together.

"I Shot a Fish Hawk Falco Alitus [osprey] at the Mouth of the Big Miami River a handsome Male in good Plumage. he was wingd only and in attempting to Seize Joseph's hand, he ran One of his Claws through the Lower Mandible of his Bill and exhibited a very Ludicrous object-these Birds Walk with great dificulty and Like all of The Falco and Strix Genus throw themselves on their backs to defend themselves.

"We returnd to our Boat with a Wild Turkey 7 Partriges [northern bobwhite quail] a Tall Tale Godwit [greater yellowlegs] and a Hermit Thrush which was too much torn to make a drawing of it this Was the first time I had Met with the Bird and felt particularly Mortified at its Situation.

"We passd the Small Town of Laurenceburgh in Indiana, Petersburgh in K.y, We Walked in the afternoon to Bellevue. . . . We killed 4 Small Grebes [horned grebes] at one Shot from a Flock of about 30. We approached them with ease to within about 40 Yards, they were chassing each other and quite Mery.

"When the Destructive fire through the whole in consternation, the Many Wounded escaped by Diving, the rest flew off-this is the second time I have seen this kind, and they must be extremely rare, in this part of America-. . . We walked this day about 40 Miles saw one Deer Crossing the River".

This might be the first record of what we would call a field trip to the Oxbow area. And it's interesting to read that Audubon collected an osprey, as well as a life bird, a hermit thrush, on his visit to the Oxbow area. A few days later and further down the river, he managed to collect a hermit thrush that was in good enough shape to use as a drawing model. 

The quotations from Audubon's Mississippi River Journal are taken from John James Audubon: Writings & Drawings, published by The Library of America in 1999. The composition, capitalization, spellings and punctuation are as they are in Audubon's journal and the bracketed contemporary names of the birds Audubon mentions in his journal are as listed in the notes by Christoph Irmscher, Editor of the Library of America Audubon Collection. (2/21/04)

Purchase of CSX Property
 by
 Jon Seymour

On Friday, November 14, 2003, Mark Westrich, Tim Mara, and I met in Bill Ewan’s office in Lawrenceburg to finalize the purchase of property north and south of the CSX railroad trestle crossing the Great Miami River. This was an exciting moment for me since this is the first purchase I have presided over since becoming President of this organization. The purchase amounted to 56.2 acres for a cost of $86,620. The property consists of about 26 acres south of the CSX railroad trestle and about 32 acres north of the trestle. CSX insisted on maintaining ownership of a very wide right of way of 200 feet on either side of the center of the trestle. Normally this would be a 60 foot right of way but the complexities of constructing another trestle when the current one needs to be replaced dictate a need for lots of room. This purchase is significant in several ways. It nearly doubles the acreage east of I-275 that will be available for next years hunting season. This will continue our concept of allowing hunting along the edge of the preserve while maintaining a large center core safe area, free from hunting. This model is successful with many of the National Wildlife Refuges in the United States and is consistent with our policy of recognizing the hunter’s role in conservation. The purchase also gives Oxbow, Inc. its first land on the east bank of the Great Miami River. This came as a surprise to us and is the result of the constantly shifting flow of the Great Miami. We can say for the first time that the Great Miami runs through Oxbow, Inc. property. This purchase also completes our ownership of the island at the mouth of the Great Miami River. (10/03)

Purchase of Whitacre Property Adds 40 Acres to the Oxbow

by
Jon Seymour

We are thrilled to announce the purchase of 40 acres of Oxbow bottom land on October 12, 2004 from Debbie and Robert Whitacre.  Oxbow purchased the land for $143,000 and an allowance of a 15 year limited use plan for the Whitacres.  The plan allows the Whitacres an additional 15 years of limited use of the property from the date of purchase while placing restrictions on any further development of the property.  Oxbow also obtained the rights to the farm income from the property beginning in 2005.  This also means that there will be no public access to the land for the 15 years of the contract.

 This important purchase gives Oxbow control of most of the Ohio River shore line between the Argosy Casino and the mouth of the Great Miami River .  Now there are only two land owners left in the immediate vicinity of the purchase and we have open offers to each of them to negotiate for the purchase of their properties.

 The Whitacre purchase is located east of the Lawrenceburg Conservancy District, south of the CSX railroad tracks, north of the Ohio River , and is bounded on the east by private property.  Oxbow will be conducting a survey of the plant life on the property in 2005 and will occasionally monitor the property to be assured that the terms of the contract are complied with.

A Tree for You, A Mudflat for Me  by  Jon Seymour Our mudflat restoration project is proceeding slowly - thank goodness! It is the only project at the Oxbow that I am happy about going slowly. The reason being, the happy coincidence, that our restoration of mudflats coincides with a tremendous need for water adapted native trees to help prevent stream bank erosion in several stream restoration projects in the tri-state area. Three different expeditions in 2004 led to the removal of an estimated 700 saplings (all silver maple) for use in several stream bank restoration projects in Butler and Hamilton Counties, Ohio. Bruce Koehler of OKI is the coordinator of this project and has marshaled volunteers from several area conservation groups to help remove the trees from the Oxbow Lake mudflat restoration area, and transplant them along streams sorely in need of tree roots to hold and maintain the soil of the stream bank. Transplantation success has been very high making these saplings even more valuable. Other benefits of the program have been that these conservation groups no longer have to purchase these trees and scarce funds can be used for other important priorities. In one instance this year the value of the trees was computed as part of the organization's contribution to a project and put them over the top for obtaining matching grant funds that allowed major expansion of the restoration project. Oxbow Inc. is very proud of its role in supporting other conservation organizations and fostering cooperation that is essential if we are going to have a natural legacy to pass on to our grandchildren.

Volunteers from a variety of local conservation organizations remove saplings from the Oxbow Lake mudflat restoration area.

Bruce Koehler’s “tree mobile” is loaded with saplings destined for area stream bank restoration projects.

The Birthday Party was a Picnic (August 2005)
by
Jon Seymour

Our first ever members picnic, and not coincidentally our 20th Birthday Party, was a great success. About 90 members attended the festivities held in Agner Hall at the Lawrenceburg Fairgrounds. Jack’s Catering prepared a sumptuous spread and the Lawrenceburg Kroger donated the soda pop and water. The “Indoor Picnic” concept worked very well, as the outside temperatures of near 90 degrees meant that we all ate comfortably in the air conditioning of Agner Hall. Jim Williams portrayed one of his ancestors, an early settler of the Ohio Valley, and gave a great program on the history of the American settlement of this area. John Cimarosti lectured and discussed his participation in the Lewis and Clark reenactment as it proceeds to the Pacific Coast. John portrays John Colter, the first American to see the park we currently call Yellowstone National Park. Both gentlemen were well received by an appreciative audience.

In addition to the stimulating conversation with other members over brats and burgers, including founding members George Laycock and Karl Maslowski, everyone had a chance to examine documents and photos demonstrating current projects that Oxbow is involved in. Plans for the proposed 2006 mitigation of the southwest border of Oxbow Lake, the CSX railroad changes, the new Argosy Casino, and the electrical substation inside the current levee were on display. Also on view was our current design for a trail sign on the levee explaining the history, purpose and unique quality of the Oxbow area to users of the levee walk way. Several members sat and viewed our 4-8th grade school presentation on the relation of animals to their habitats, using the Oxbow as the teaching tool. If that was not enough entertainment, about half of the attendees took advantage of the two tours of the Oxbow we offered. These tours were led by Rick Pope and Denis Conover. I have heard nothing but great comments about the celebration. It was our first attempt to bring the membership together and enjoy our success to date. Hopefully we will be able to do it again in the near future.

Founding members Karl Maslowski and George Laycock discuss old times and old friends at the Oxbow Birthday Picnic.

Attendees at the Oxbow Birthday Picnic sit in air conditioned Agner Hall to chow down on great picnic fare. By picnic’s end 88 members came to eat and even more came for just the tours and displays.