On September 15th, we posted a letter explaining recent developments with the Kinni, and the potential involvement of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE).
The River Falls City Council will be meeting on Tuesday, September 27th at 6:30 pm, and the agenda includes an update on the Kinni as well as, we expect, a discussion of the ACOE proposal.
A few members of KinniCC and its partners will attend the meeting in person, and we will be delivering statements supporting the ACOE proposal on behalf of Trout Unlimited and KinniCC.
Bob Luck, TCTU President, will be at the meeting, along with Duke Welter and KIAP-TU-WISH board member Gary Horvath.  We do not feel a large in-person presence is called for at this meeting, but if you would like to see the meeting virtually, you can click here for instructions.
As of now, we expect the actual vote on the ACOE proposal to take place on October 25th.  We’ll keep you posted!

The September edition of the Hotline is here, and it has some great information!  Some of the articles I found particularly interesting were:

• What is happening to Mayfly populations?
• How did a habitat project respond to a large localized flooding event?
• A SE fishing report, fresh off the streams, from the Root River Rod Company

PS If you have something to contribute to the Hotline, please contact editor Carl Berberic

​by Jim Sauter, Streamkeepers Coordinator
Greetings from the TCTU Streamkeepers!  Welcome to the fall season of 2022.
Our stream temperatures are beginning to moderate due to our shorter days and cooler evenings.  On a recent visit to the Kinni, the sun set at about 7:24 pm! 
We recorded stream temperatures in the 52 degrees to 75 degrees range over the last month.  Some additional precipitation in some locations would be helpful, although many streams have recovered nicely from the drought conditions of 2021.

Download the August Edition of the Newsletter from our Friends at the Hiawatha and WinCres Chapters!

The WinCres and Hiawatha chapters  have started to distribute an excellent monthly newsletter called "Southeast MN TU Hotline".  Watch this space for the next edition.  Meanwhile, here is an article from Hotline Editor Carl Berberich that does an excellent job summarizing where we stand with Trout in the Classroom:
The end of Trout-In-the-Classroom (TIC) program for Minnesota??? What??? Say it isn’t so.
I sure was surprised when reading an email from John Lenczewski of MNTU this spring (May 12) asking for TU members to call their state legislature Senate members for support of the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR) projects. This was because, the Republican controlled Senate was passing its own version of the LCCMR appropriation bill.

As we enter the season of hoppers and terrestrials, we received some sad news about a major fish kill in southeastern Minnesota.  The exact cause is still under investigation, but we have a pretty good idea of the cause.  Toxic chemicals.  By the time officials found out about the kill, the chemicals were most likely in the Mississippi River.
What can we as Streamkeepers and TCTU members do?  My friend biologist Kent Johnson has a few ideas.  Below are some of his thoughts about buffer zones helping preventing fish kill.

As previously announced, the MN State Legislature, in an 11th-hour move, rejected a funding request for the MNTU Trout in the Classroom (TIC) program, an award-winning science education program that teaches students in over sixty (60) Minnesota K-12 schools about coldwater conservation.
After we learned of the cancellation of TIC funding, all of MNTU statewide chapters, together with the State Council, pledged enough money to keep the program going at a basic level for another year, and agreed that we will work together in the coming year to find more sustainable, long-term support.  Rumor has it that Minnesota has the 3rd-largest TIC program in the country, only behind California and New York.
In order to boost support across Minnesota for MNTU Education Program Supervisor, Amber Taylor, we are looking at developing a field support effort for the enrolled schools, which for this coming year is approximately 70 K-12 schools.  This field support would be achieved by MNTU Chapter volunteers supporting 1 to 5 schools in each of the volunteer’s local community.

By Tom Roddis, Oktoberfish Volunteer
Join the TCTU community at the Summit Brewing Rathskeller for our year-end celebration and  silent auction to benefit TU education and outreach programs.
Swap fish tales over beer and food trucks fare.  Learn the finer points of fly lines and their performance from guest speaker Josh Jenkins of Scientific Anglers.  Catch up on the latest TCTU news with a chapter update from Bob Luck.
Tickets are $25 per person and include one free beer.  And...we have an early bird special!  If you register for the event by September 1st, you can select one of the following gifts:  a ceramic mug, a Silipint cup, or a box of flies tied by one of our volunteers (approx. 30 flies).  We have limited supplies of the fly boxes and Silipints, so act now to get your first choice!
To register, click below.  You can also visit our Facebook page for updates on the event (don’t forget to like the page and share it).

Please read this important message from our State Council Chair, Brent Notbohm.  Getting on the Board of MNTU is one of the best ways you can contribute to TU's Mission in Minnesota, and it is a lot of fun as well!