Mark Carr works on public relations, government affairs, and safety communications at AEP River Operations in Chesterfield, Missouri.
What is RiverWorks Discovery?
RiverWorks Discovery is our river education program. We provide the foundation for positive community action for healthy, multiuse waterways by educating children and their families about the commerce, culture, and conservation of the great rivers and their watersheds. Our website is www.RiverWorksDiscovery.org.
We’re part of AEP River Operations, the second-largest dry-bulk carrier on the inland rivers. We handle grain, metals, construction materials, and coal. We have about 2,700 barges and about 70 towboats. We have about 1,600 employees, most of whom work on our towboats. Our people ride 24/7/365, in four-, three-, or two-week trips.
What is the scope of your education program?
RiverWorks Discovery addresses commerce, culture, and conservation education. It is easy to find clean water programs, but it is difficult to find programs on the culture and history of the rivers. And it is very difficult to find out about the history of commerce—what the Native Americans, the early settlers, or the people of the steamboat era moved, or what is currently moving on our waterways. When we started the program about four years ago, we made a conscious effort to talk about commerce, culture, and conservation, all interwoven into RiverWorks Discovery.
What are your objectives in providing these educational opportunities?
Our objectives are to promote community action, and there are a couple of ways that happens. One is through recognition, the appreciation when you see those commercial boats going by, whether they are barge freight, passenger vessels, or something else, that those are integral parts of the community, both from the jobs standpoint and looking backward through time. If you are looking at a fishing vessel, recognize that the Native Americans fished along there, the settlers fished along there.
RiverWorks Discovery’s mission on the cultural side is to help folks understand why towns are along the waterways in the first place. Even cities that don’t have a real maritime focus—like Spokane, Fort Collins, or Columbus—were settled because there was a steady supply of clean water. Generally, Native Americans had a settlement there, then the settlers came in and established their own villages.
It’s important to us that when policymakers are dealing with river issues, the public understands the issues and supports river use. That means locks, dams, and maintenance along the big rivers that support navigation and clean water. Our industry is heavily regulated for clean water, but people mistakenly think that the boats are dirty and pollute. In reality, shipping cargo by boat creates fewer air emissions and fewer fuel spills than rail or truck.
In general, what responsibility do you think that businesses have to provide this sort of education that you are talking about?
Perhaps not responsibilities, but certainly opportunities. If businesses want to be sure that the public understands them, they should use opportunities to talk to the public. If the public doesn’t understand them and they haven’t taken those opportunities, then it is not the public’s fault.
That is the situation we were in a few years ago in our industry. We had public policy issues that we were trying to address. The public didn’t understand our river industry and the policymakers didn’t understand us, either. So we took the opportunity to go out and talk to the public and talk to policymakers through this RiverWorks Discovery mechanism, and we think it is paying dividends for us. We think that people can understand us on a better level than if we just walked in with “PR-speak.” This is hands-on, real-world stuff that kids and families enjoy. Policymakers see that.
What are the venues for providing this information to the public?
We have a tent exhibit that we take out to community festivals, regattas, and school events, where kids can see the maps and images from our history. An interpreter talks about the cargo from past times and now. The kids have a clean rivers pledge that they can make. The interpreter will work with them on points like, if you are mowing the lawn and changing the oil in your lawnmower, don’t pour the dredge out on the grass because oil makes its way into our streams and rivers.
RiverWorks Discovery commissioned storyteller Susan Fowler to develop a story about the rivers and the lives of the people who work out there now. She works with fiber braiding and interprets songs. Kids play the different parts of the tow and the members of the crew. We’re delighted that Susan helps us; she’s phenomenal.
Our team built two 3-D puzzles: a side-wheeler from the steam era and a modern towboat. Each has about 20 pieces. These puzzles are displayed with illustrated banners so the kids can see a historic riverfront with the side-wheeler and a contemporary riverfront with the modern towboat. As the kids work the puzzles, the interpreter guides them through the concepts on the surrounding banners.
We also built a lock and dam toy that is made of heavy plastic and has water storage tanks and pumps. It pumps water into the upstream side of the dam. There’s a working dam and lock chamber. This thing is a pretty good size. It’s roughly eight feet long, four feet high, and a couple of feet wide. It holds about 60 gallons of water. The toy boats are roughly the size of a football. The kids learn quickly, usually before than their parents do. The kids can get in there, get wet, learn something, and have a good time. They can lock through going upstream or downstream, depending on how they control the dam and the lock chamber.
It sounds like most of what you were describing is geared towards children.
We developed our program for kids ages 7–12 because they are old enough to make judgments, think independently, and engage in activities, but they are young enough that our printed materials go home to their parents and grandparents. That was an important part of our community action goal—that adults engage in this community issue. We use our opportunity to get an important story to families.
What has the reaction been from the public since you began offering RiverWorks Discovery four years ago?
It has been pretty positive. We have done pre- and post-surveys and we have gotten qualitative feedback from attendees. We have gotten a lot of encouragement and a lot of positive evaluations. We have dealt with about 150,000 kids and families and it has pointed us in two directions. One direction we are exploring is making a more substantial museum exhibit that would travel around the country. We’d like to show RiverWorks Discovery to millions of people. Second, we may add high school programs. That could help us in policy issues and with making impressions on future employees.
