Anniversary of voters rejecting damming Meramac celebrated

SULLIVAN, Mo. -- The relaxing river flows calmly, with its mussels and unique species of fish. The surrounding brush, with its armadillos, black bears and tarantulas, is mostly quiet. A cave, its mouth gaping at 90 feet tall, welcomes visitors seeking refuge from the sun.

This part of eastern Missouri was very nearly under millions of gallons of water.

In the 1970s, the Army Corps of Engineers was building dams and lakes all across the country. In 1974, the corps spent $27 million buying land for an inundation zone and a dam on the Meramec River south of Sullivan, southwest of St. Louis.

Public opinion, originally supporting the proposal, soon switched to oppose the dam. Officials agreed to a nonbinding public vote. On Aug. 8, 1978, voters in 10 rural Meramec-area counties and the St. Louis area rejected the dam by 64 percent of the vote. Three years later, Congress officially scrapped the project.

Now 25 years after the referendum, environmentalists are celebrating. On the exact anniversary of the public vote -- Aug. 8 -- the state Department of Natural Resources will lead a canoe trip down the river, showing off the native beauty the vote helped to preserve.

River usually calm

The store at Meramec State Park coordinates 5- and 10-mile float trips down the river. Customers are taken by bus to a spot upstream, where canoes or rafts are waiting. Other than a few small rapids, the river is mostly calm -- except when the motorboats come by, making life a little more exciting for the people in canoes and rafts.

Most people don't hit the river empty-handed, though. Many bring along fishing gear to use either while floating or after they stop. And, a warning to the family-oriented groups out there: Plenty of people use the river as an excuse to bring a cooler or two or three full of booze.

The department's Aug. 8 tour uses the 5-mile trip, the same one a group of journalists used for a preview of the DNR-led tour.

The two park naturalists who lead the trip provide biology and history lessons along the way, showing off species unique to the river as well as their knowledge of the local plants and animals. The trip first stops at a sandbar, where the guides show off the evolution of some waterways. Old Hamilton Creek is drying up, but not far away a new creek is cutting through the brush.

"The river is changing constantly, and that's what it's about," said Brian Wilcox, a park naturalist who led the tour.

Species unique to the Meramec would almost certainly have been destroyed if the dam had been constructed, Wilcox said. There are dozens of species of mussels in the river. You can find fish species exclusive to Missouri and some unique to the Meramec, including the bleeding shiner and the saddle darter.

After traveling about another mile down the river, Green's Cave rises out of the hillside on the right. To get to it, you have to climb a bit on a path up the side of a hill, and the cave is definitely worth it. The cave's mouth stretches 90 feet high, welcoming visitors to the cool shade it provides.

Bats can frequently be found in the back of the cave, enjoying the cold humidity. Had the dam been built, the beauty of the cave, including its natural spring, would be 20 feet below the surface of the lake.

Just outside the cave's mouth, someone built a stone bridge over the stream -- back in the days before the land became a state park.

After turning a sharp bend in the river, Wilcox leads the tour to a grove of trees that creates an alcove on the left side.

Wilcox and the other guide, Jody Miles, lead the tour on a hike cutting through thick undergrowth -- "bushwacking," Wilcox calls it. Up a gradually sloping hill, the group of journalists got to see three armadillos scampering away through the thick grasses when they heard us coming.

The top of the hill forms a sort of plateau that where the tall grasses and trees disappear, and the land opens in front. The land, now pocked with rocks, is known to scientists as a glade. This one carries the name of Cactus Ridge.

Tarantulas, scorpions

Missouri is about as far to the northeast as glades are found, making it among the rarest of habitats in the state. The desert-like habitat of a glade is home to various animals not usually thought of as native to Missouri.

Miles even coaxed a tarantula -- yes, a tarantula -- out of its hole. Miles had searched for small holes with a light covering of silk on the underside of rocks. She finally found what she was looking for, and by teasing the tarantula with the stick, she brought it out of its hole.

Part of the reason there are few tarantulas left in Missouri is that there are few glades, Miles said. But tarantulas aren't the only desert species found in Missouri. Miles and Wilcox claimed scorpions also live on the glade -- but the media group didn't get to see one.

Had the river been dammed and the lake created, the glade with its scorpions and tarantulas would have been 20 feet below the surface.