The vision of Kaw Point nears completion

Five years ago, when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stood in the parking lot near Kaw Point Park, an overgrown spit at the confluence of the Missouri and Kaw rivers littered with debris and wafting the odor of dead fish, someone in the crowd asked him what he saw. The noted clean-water activist said simply: “A squandered resource.”

Mike Calwell was there that day. In fact, he and his wife, Laura — and their work with the Friends of the Kaw — had brought Kennedy to the gritty industrial bottoms just east of Kansas City, Kansas. Since then, the couple have been working to turn that forgotten spot into a historic destination where residents and tourists can explore the 1804 landing of Lewis and Clark.

After this weekend, they’re mighty close to declaring: mission accomplished.