SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) - If reading a book containing the U.S. Fish Commission report of 1882 sounds interesting, you and Bill Beacom might be the only two people around Sioux City who would think so.
While not a real page-turner to just about everyone else, it’s a book Beacom read through in his ongoing quest to gain every bit of knowledge about the Missouri River basin he can find.
It’s one of more than 300 books on topics that most of us probably would find mundane that Beacom has spent years collecting, reading and storing in the small library on the second floor of his Sioux City home.
Missouri River basin ecology, geology and climatology. Old maps and scientific reports from early explorations and railroad surveys of the region dating back to the 1800s and even earlier. Lots of books about fish.
“There’s not hardly any subject in the basin except whether did the governor’s wife paint her toenails or not that I don’t have books on,” Beacom told the Sioux City Journal.
As a riverboat captain who spent decades pulling loads up and down the Missouri, Beacom already had extensive knowledge of the river’s ebbs and flows.
But when you’re telling the people debating the river’s use that there are solutions that could satisfy everyone, you’ve got to know your facts.
And those old books are full of facts, no matter how minute they may be, that Beacom has stashed in his brain and recalled when grilling experts at countless meetings and hearings with scientists, conservationists and government bureaucrats.
“The more I looked, the more I found that nobody had ever bothered to do this,” Beacom said of the wide-ranging body of knowledge he’s compiled.
Now 81, Beacom knew he needed to do something with all those books eventually. He didn’t want his children to have to sort through them someday and decide if they were worth keeping.
When touring the U.S. Geological Survey’s Columbia Environmental Research Center in Columbia, Missouri, about 10 years ago, he saw the near-empty library in the agency’s newly completed building. Through their many collaborations on the Missouri River, Beacom and USGS officials there were on familiar terms, and when one of them asked what he planned to do with his book collection, Beacom had an answer ready.
“I said I want to give it a home. I wanted to give it to someone who would use it,” he said.
Later this spring, the USGS will transport Beacom’s collection to that Columbia library, where all the knowledge contained in those books will be accessible to others who may find it useful.
For Beacom, Missouri River management is personal. The Salix, Iowa, native practically grew up on the river. He began piloting riverboats as a teenager and spent his career piloting towing vessels not just on the Missouri, but every river in the Mississippi River system.
When environmental interests wanted to eliminate navigation on the Missouri River in order to protect endangered fish and birds, Beacom wasn’t going to sit still.
“My first thing was self-defense,” he said. “I’m a navigator, and I didn’t want them to shut the river down.”
After sitting in on debates, he watched both sides take an all-or-nothing approach, neither willing to compromise. Beacom talked to scientists, listened to their points of view and decided he needed to learn more about what they were talking about.
He had observed that experts involved in river management discussions often knew just one small piece of the puzzle and couldn’t explain how it fit into the whole picture.
Beacom wanted to understand the whole picture, so he began to learn everything he could about the fish and other species. He bought those books from the 1800s to learn about which species were native, which ones had been brought in from somewhere else and how they fit into the Missouri’s ecosystem.
A book on one topic often led to another. He found books on eBay and other websites, compiling full sets of some volumes that can’t be found anywhere else but maybe in the Library of Congress.
“The only way you can win is you’ve got to do your homework,” he said.
Doing all that homework has earned him respect from many of the experts he’s challenged at hearings and forums. The debates on how best to manage the Missouri River continue, but Beacom will never show up unprepared, thanks to all those books.
They’ve given him the knowledge he’s needed, and he’s ready to pass them on.
“I’m only keeping stuff that’s personal, and most of that I have in duplicate,” Beacom said.
And book or no book, there’s no duplicating the knowledge he’s now stored in his head.
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