Not Just Any Other River - artist's essay

Not Just Any Other River
Artist's Essay by Jeremy Wangler

It could be just any other river. Any river that winds through rural America, flows into Anytown, USA, and empties into the next body of water. If we don’t stop to look at it, think about it and appreciate it, it becomes just any other river.

The Kansas River is often just any other river to me since I moved to the state 19 years ago. But I want it to become more. It flows just three blocks from my home in Topeka, Kansas. I cross it regularly. Usually, I think nothing of it as I maneuver traffic, flip through radio stations or think about my next stop. I need to spend more time thinking about the river. We all do. And if you live outside of northeast Kansas, chances are, there’s a river or two you need to spend more time thinking about.

The Kansas River is the longest prairie river in the world. A prairie river is one that gets all its water from tributaries that originate in the prairie, not from mountains, aquifers or other sources. The Kansas River is slow and shallow in most spots and full of sandbars. I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, where the nearby Platte River offers similar opportunities. My family and I took advantage of them, wading in it, walking its sandbars and floating its current on inner tubes or canoes. The family fun and peaceful serenity are memories I’ll never forget. 

Now a happy and proud Kansan, the Kansas River is my river. It affects much of my region. Probably more than most Kansans realize. The towns along the way get their drinking water from it and give back their treated wastewater. A hydroelectric power plant in Lawrence, Kansas, produces clean energy, and coal-powered plants in the region use the river water for cooling. It provides water for industrial and agricultural enterprises. It’s a resource for wildlife, recreation, fishing and hunting. Catch a glimpse of it from a bridge or other high vista and you’re struck with awe, especially if the sun is rising or setting. But look closer, especially near populated areas, and you see the litter and signs of pollution.

The Kansas River near Willard, Kansas

Throughout the spring of 2023, I traveled the river to create this collection of photographs I call “Confluential.” I drove the interstate, highways and unpaved roads that follow and cross the Kansas River. Where I could, I got out of my car and explored the shores and sandbars. I stood on the sandy shore where it begins in Junction City, Kansas, and walked the rocky shore where it ends in Kansas City, Kansas. I documented what I saw with my camera, photographing the views from the shore, the buildings and structures around it and the life in the cities and rural areas within the region. I photographed things you might think have nothing to do with the river. But they are there – we are here – because of it. The Kansas River is why cities, homes and farmsteads were formed in this area generations ago. It is why Kansa Indians made this area their home long before that.

I explored the lakes, rivers and streams that feed into the Kansas River. I passed by more than 25 communities, ranging in size from unincorporated towns like Zeandale, Kansas, with just a few dozen residents to Kansas City, Missouri, with half a million people. The Smoky Hill River and Republican River meet in Junction City, and at some point in place-naming history, it was decided those two rivers are done and the Kansas River begins. In the Kansas City metropolitan area, it meets the Missouri River, and the Mighty Mo gets to keep its name as the two waterways intersect and travel across the state of Missouri to feed into the Mississippi River. From there, the water – some of which came from the prairies and cities of Kansas – finds its way to the Gulf of Mexico.

The Kansas River is both beautiful and ugly. We made it the latter. The Native Americans present before European colonizers described parts of the waterway as a clear river surrounded by prairie. Now, it’s a brown river tainted by runoff from our agricultural and industrial practices within the watershed, and by the trash and other pollutants we create.

The Kansas River from Kansas City, Kansas, looking east to Kansas City, Missouri

Much of the land along the Kansas River in my city is owned by industrial businesses where warehouses, fences, levees and more block the view. In other places, we see tents and shelters occupied by people who call the river shore home. Most call these people homeless, but they have made the river as much their home as an otter or Canada goose does. It's much of the same in the other large cities along the river’s flow. Unless you’re a landowner along the shore or use one of the public access points, your view and experience of the river is mostly from your car.

During my travels, I met with Dawn Buehler, executive director of Friends of the Kaw (the state and the river are named after the Kansa Indians, also known as the Kaw). Dawn also holds the title of Kansas Riverkeeper, a designation given by the Waterkeeper Alliance. She holds dearly her duties to advocate for a cleaner, safer and more accessible river. Read the transcript of my interview with her below for more valuable information. She knows as much about the Kansas River as anyone. I have much to learn about the Kansas River, and many people have much to teach me. I have simply used my camera – my artform – to document and share this collection of photographs from a short period of time along the river.

As a landscape photographer, I have attempted to capture the beauty of the river before. With that method, I point my camera in ways that leave out signs of human interaction, especially the ugly. I wait for the golden rays of the sun around sunset or sunrise and hope for nice clouds to help add color to the sky. I take dozens of pictures and chose the best few to edit, bringing out the colors and further hiding what I don’t want us to see. The photo below, taken in Topeka, is an example of that.

The Kansas River from the Topeka, Kansas, weir access point

​“Confluential” had none of that. I shot during harsh sunlight, rain, dreariness and more. In most cases, I took one or two photos of each scene and moved on. Despite this, I hope you find the collection to be beautiful and pleasing in some cases and ugly and disturbing in others. I can truly say this collection is a factual documentation of the Kansas River during March and April of 2023. 

As the Kansas Riverkeeper told me, “The general public, through no fault of their own, drives over a bridge and never looks down. We're trying to change that.”

Rivers are essential. Our care for them is just as essential. At the very least, look at the river and remember, it’s more than just any other river.

Water is life.

Confluential - the photo series

Kansas River Map

An Interview with Dawn Buehler, Kansas Riverkeeper

Dawn Buehler is the Kansas Riverkeeper and executive director of Friends of the Kaw, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the Kansas River, educating the public and promoting recreation on the river.

​Interview by Jeremy Wangler on April 17, 2023. Edited for clarity and brevity.

​What does it mean to you to have the title "Riverkeeper"?
The very first riverkeeper was on the Hudson River in New York, and the reason they started the organization was because the commercial fisherman were losing their livelihood because the Hudson River would catch on fire from pollution. So, they sued the polluters and started the very first riverkeeper on the Hudson River. The organization grew and it became Waterkeeper Alliance. 

Friends of the Kaw is a member of Waterkeeper Alliance. One of the requirements if you're going to be a member is to have a full-time riverkeeper – a non-governmental public advocate who holds the community accountable for the health of the river. I take it very seriously, having that role. I love the part of the job that is frankly busting polluters, but I also love educating the public because that's a very different thing. It's changing the way people think and feel about the river. We're trying to do that and help them to see that the decisions they make in their cities and in their counties impact the river and the quality of it simply for being a river and because 800,000-plus people get their drinking water from it. It's critically an important resource for northeast Kansas, but I think the general public, through no fault of their own, drives over a bridge and never looks down. We're trying to change that. 

What does Friends of the Kaw do?
We're a non-profit whose mission is to protect and preserve the Kansas River. Our mission involves advocating for the rehabilitation of the Kansas River environs and its water quality and wildlife habitat. A big part of our focus is education. We also promote public, compatible, recreational use of the river. 

I grew up on this river in the town of De Soto. I spent my childhood on the river on a 2,000-acre vegetable farm. When Friends of the Kaw was started 31 years ago, the first thing they saw was it's a public waterway – one of only three in Kansas – and yet the public can't access it because it's surrounded by private land. And so, Friends of the Kaw started building boat ramps, and has now built 19 boat ramps. I think about that; I was in a place of privilege to be able to be on the river when I was a kid. All I had to do was walk down to the river's edge and get in the johnboat and go. Most of the state didn't have that opportunity. Friends of the Kaw has worked on making sure access happens. 
  
There's very little we would be against in terms of communities developing riverfront access. But, the three big things are, don't put a new structure in the river such as a dam where you're going to prevent people from going up and down it. Number two, make sure that whatever you put in place, you surround it with native plants to protect water quality. And number three, do not wall it off so the public can't have access. It needs to have public access throughout the entire development.
  
Why is the Kansas River such an important ecosystem?
It's the lifeblood of northeast Kansas. You have 800,000-plus people who get their drinking water from this river. We call it a working river because there's a lot of industry that relies on this river. Hydropower at Bowersock (Mills & Power Co.) relies on water. They're non-consumptive, which means they borrow the water as it comes through. But there's other businesses that rely on the water. Then there's the recreational and the human component. We don't have to go to southwest Missouri to go kayaking. People think they do. But they can do it here, on the Kansas River and have access to these beautiful sandbars and camping. Most people don't even realize it. It's a lifeblood for that too, for the people and for wildlife. The otter and the beaver are back in the Kansas River. And we have a record this year with 27 nesting pairs of bald eagles on the Kansas River. It's full of wildlife. Absolutely full of wildlife.
  
What are some of the biggest concerns facing the river today?
One of the biggest challenges is trash. One of the biggest contributors right now to trash is the houseless population along the Kansas River. We're trying to work with the cities to get them to find other ways to take care of this population and to make sure they have trash receptacles and restrooms at their disposal. If they're going to allow them to camp on public property, they need to treat it like public property and have trash cans and restrooms and at least help reduce the trash by those methods. The other thing is, our urban areas still get a lot of trash. We like to remind people that trash is only one windy Kansas day away from our rivers. If you see it on the street, it's helpful to pick it up and put it in the trash, even if it's not yours. 
  
And then there’s microplastics. Microplastics exist in everything we wear practically. The wastewater treatment plants aren’t equipped to deal with them right now, so they're going right back out to our rivers once they come into the system through washing machines and those sorts of things. Fish are consuming them, and it affects the entire food chain. The other type of microplastic is where the plastics break down from action with the water and the sun. We're starting to find smaller pieces of plastic on the sandbars, which is really sad. You see pictures of it in the ocean and you think, that's not going to happen here. Well, it's happening here.

Climate change is a huge threat to our waterways. It's a huge threat to our communities. In 2019 we saw the Great Flood, and then in 2022 we saw a big drought. The differences are so stark and vast, and we've got to come up with ways to deal with this better in our cities, especially in our urban areas to deal with the stormwater runoff. We're going to continue to have 5 to 7-inch rains in short periods of times, and the flashiness coming off the cities, it's coming into the river so fast, we need to do a better job of slowing it down with less concrete and more grass. 
  
The whole Kansas River has a TMDL (total maximum daily load), which means it's impaired for phosphorous. Parts of it are impaired for bacteria. It's rated for contact recreation, but it's not rated for swimming - putting your head under water swimming. I honestly don't know of any waterway that drains a watershed that is. The Waterkeeper Alliance has a goal of swimmable, fishable, drinkable waters.
  
What do you wish the public knew more about the river?
I wish we could change the narrative away from it's a dirty and dangerous river. My response to that is, any river, any waterway is dangerous when it's flooding and if you don't have on a lifejacket. So, it doesn't matter whether it's the Kansas River or it's the creek in your backyard. With the dirty river, I just want to remind people that we live in Kansas, which is an agricultural state. Before we turned the first soil with the settlers, the Kansas River was described by the Native Americans as being surrounded by prairie and that the waters were clear. It is no longer clear. A lot of the time when it rains, it's chocolate soup. And it's chocolate soup because of the way we treat the watershed. The river is a reflection of the watershed and a reflection of the reservoirs. If we don't want a muddy river, we have to change our practices. We have to put in grass buffers and put on cover crops and make sure our cities have lots of green infrastructure. If you put in trees and deep-rooted grasses that are meant to be in Kansas and along our rivers and streams, they will filter out pollutants. We have to demand those things as citizens or it's not going to happen.
  
What's your favorite Kansas River activity?
I love to do what's called chasing the channel – that's why I call my blog Chasing the Channel. It's all about zigzagging back and forth wherever the channel goes. I get as close to the bank as possible because that's where you see the wildlife. You have to be quiet and you have to be up front - you can't be the last one in the group. I will quietly move along the edge, and you will see beaver, you will see otter, you will see deer, you will see turtles. You'll see the great blue heron and the bald eagles. And that's my favorite way to be on the river.

Not everyone wants to get on the river. Some people want to walk beside it. Some people want to sit on a park bench or on a rock and enjoy it. And some people just want to know that it's there. And those are all great ways to enjoy it. There are ways in your everyday life you can protect it and never even set foot on the river. You can change the way the water is filtered coming off of where your house is. Or you can go pick up trash on a walk. Make sure that your own trash is picked up. Don't let your car leak oil. Wash your car in the car wash, not in your driveway because when you wash in the carwash, it goes into the wastewater treatment plant, and when you do it in your driveway, the soapsuds go straight into the river. Do you open your coffee from four hours ago and dump it onto the ground or do you wait until you get home to pour it down the drain? It's just the little things, but they can add up if everyone does the little things.​