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  LWV Upper Mississippi River Region

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Does it take an Act of Congress to Save the Mississippi? Video now posted!

5/28/2022

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The answer is that Congress is one piece – an important one – of the solution to the Mississippi’s woes.  In the UMRR Annual Meeting, we will have an exciting panel of speakers to talk about bills currently in the US Congress that have the potential to greatly affect our river.  We also explored the idea of a “compact” between river states to protect the river from water diversions.  This session is the foundation for the work that LWV UMRR will tackle in the years to come.   (The program starts at 2:30, please skip to that point before you begin watching.)
Our featured presenters are Alicia Vasto from the Iowa Environmental Council speaking on the Mississippi River Restoration and Resilience initiative (MRRRI), Brandt Thorington from the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative on the Safeguarding the Mississippi River Together initiative (SMRT), Lara Bryant from the Natural Resources Defense Council speaking on behalf of the Clean Water For All Coalition on the Farm Bill reauthorization and Kirsten Wallace from the Upper Mississippi River Basin Authority on the notion of an Upper Midwest Compact to protect the waters of the Mississippi from diversion.   We have more information on the speakers in this post on the UMRR Blog.  
This video was recorded on May 21 at 10:30. This video is presented by the League of Women Voters Upper Mississippi River Region. To learn more about our organization and our work, visit our website at https://www.lwvumrr.org/ .
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Does it take an act of Congress to protect the Mississippi?

3/23/2022

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The answer is that Congress is one piece – an important one – of the solution to the Mississippi’s woes.  In the UMRR Annual Meeting, we will have an exciting panel of speakers to talk about bills currently in the US Congress that have the potential to greatly affect our river.  We will also explore the idea of a “compact” between river states to protect the river from water diversions.  This session will set the stage for the work that LWV UMRR will tackle in the years to come.  

Join LWV UMRR for this session on May 21 at 10:30.  This meeting will be held in Webinar format on Zoom - pre-registration is required.  
Click this link to pre-register!  You will receive the link to the meeting by return email; we will send reminders in May, including on the 21st.   Registration is open until the meeting starts on May 21 at 10:30.  

​We have a great slate of panelists for this session - representatives from other organizations working for the river and leading work on federal bills and big ideas.    We will cover the Mississippi River Restoration and Resilience initiative (MRRRI), the Safeguarding the Mississippi River Together initiative (SMRT), the Farm Bill reauthorization and a big idea - the notion of an Upper Midwest Compact to protect the waters of the Mississippi from diversion.  Our speakers represent organizations that are working to protect the Mississippi.  ​
MRRRI Update
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Alicia Vasto, Water Program Associate Director,  Iowa Environmental Council

​Alicia joined the Council in 2019. She grew up in Adel, Iowa. She previously worked as the director of the Iowa
Conservation Education Coalition, where she supported environmental educators and advanced environmental literacy. Alicia holds a Master of Environmental Management degree from Duke University with a focus on land conservation and management, and an undergraduate degree in Environmental Science from the University of Notre Dame. In her free time, she enjoys cycling, travel, and yoga.

SMRT Update
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Brandt Thorington,
Policy Director,  Mississippi River Cities and Town Initiative

Brandt serves as the Policy Director for the MRCTI, specializing  in analyzing legislation affects, building coalitions and advancing legislation. His primary areas of expertise are  appropriations,
tax policy, budget, energy, health care, immigration reform, homeland security, public safety, transportation, water infrastructure, and community development. Brandt has extensive experience working with various levels of government including Congress, federal officials, state legislators, mayors, and other local officials.
Farm Bill Update
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Lara Bryant, Deputy Director, Water and Agriculture, Natural Resources Defence Council

Lara Bryant promotes soil health practices and policies that protect water quality, use water more efficiently, and help farms to be more resilient to climate change. Prior to joining NRDC, she worked on sustainable agricultural policy at the National Wildlife Federation and World Resources Institute and was a chemist at a private environmental laboratory. Bryant holds a bachelor’s degree in plant and soil science from the University of Tennessee and a master’s degree in public administration in environmental science and policy from Columbia University. She works out of NRDC’s Washington, D.C., office.
Upper Midwest Charter
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 Kirsten Wallace, Executive Director, Upper Mississippi River Basin Association

Kirsten Wallace was appointed executive director of UMRBA in 2017, following over 10 years focusing on the Association's ecosystem, navigation, and flood initiatives.  Kirsten works with UMRBA's member states to develop  regional positions, advocate the states' collective interests before Congress and the federal agencies, and facilitate and foster interagency coordination, cooperation, and communication.
Kirsten serves on the Board of the Interstate Council on Water Policy, America's Watershed Initiative, and the National Waterways Foundation.
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States' Progress in Nutrient Loss Reduction

12/20/2021

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On December 14, 2021, the Hypoxia Task Force (HTF) met.  This group, with representatives from 12 states, one tribe and an impressive array of federal agencies, coordinates the activities of the participating groups in attempting to move forward the Nutrient Reduction Strategy with a goal of 45% lower levels of nutrient loss from the land to the Mississippi River and the Gulf.  The HTF was formed in 1997.  The deadline for achieving the nutrient reduction goal keeps moving back.  

Each state has developed its own nutrient reduction strategy to meet its needed share of the nutrient loss reduction.  The map to the right shows the priority watersheds that have been designated in each state as a focus of work.   Progress on the goal is reported every five years, with the last one in 2018 and the next one due in 2023.  

This process has not been universally successful at reducing nutrient losses.  There has been significant success at reducing losses from point sources, but nonpoint sources (i.e. agriculture) are not showing the same level of success.
 Areas of improvement that could be pursued by the Hypoxia Task Force:
1.  States should move to reporting tools that are helpful in understanding the scale of change needed.  This article by the Iowa Environmental Council does a good job of explaining how just recording the number of projects doesn't help really measure progress unless the total number of projects that need to be undertaken is actually known.  They site the website that Kentucky is now using to track progress as a positive example.  


2.  The Hypoxia Task Force should be expanded to include one or more non-governmental entities, for example a non-profit organization like the Mississippi River Network, to represent this sector.  This will increase public participation in the work of the Task Force as well.  

To really make a dent in the nutrient loss that is washing into the Mississippi will require significant change in behavior of people throughout the basin.  This can't be accomplished by agency actions alone.  Public engagement and buy-in is necessary.  


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In a December 20 article "Illinois — a major feeder to the Gulf of Mexico dead zone — falls behind federal goal to reduce phosphorus and nitrogen flowing into its waterways", Morgan Greene wrote for the Chicago Tribune:    By 2025, Illinois aims to reduce nitrogen and nitrate by 15% and phosphorus by 25%, with a goal of greater long-term reductions.  Instead, averaged from 2015 to 2019, nitrogen loads increased by 13% compared with a baseline period from 1980 to 1996, and phosphorus loads increased by 35%, according to the latest biennial report on the state’s reduction strategy, released this fall.

The LWV UMRR Blog has covered many aspects of nutrient loss strategies and the Dead Zone in the Gulf.  You can read more about them at the links below:
  •  Nutrient pollution
  • Farm Bill
  • Government policy
  • Outreach and engagement
Nutrient loss reduction is a major goal of the LWV UMRR, and we work through education and advocacy to promote policies and practices in this direction.

Here is a quote from comments that the Mississippi River Network's Masiah Kahn made at the December 14 HTF virtual public meeting:

 This annual public meeting is the only opportunity that the public, non-profit organizations, and other stakeholders get to engage the Task Force as a whole – and we think the Task Force can do much better to encourage and enable robust public participation in a meeting like this.

I echo the concerns raised about the fact that despite incremental progress in reduction strategies and the increased adoption of innovative conservation practices, we are nowhere near the interim target of reducing nitrogen and phosphorus loading by 20 percent by 2025. We can no longer keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. It’s also hard to see the forest for the trees when the Task Force’s overarching goals are not front and center in meetings like this. 


You can find the presentations and comments from Dec 14 Hypoxia Task Force meeting at this link.  
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Dead Zone Update from 1 Mississippi

9/22/2021

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This year's Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone (which occurs near where the Mississippi River drains into the Gulf) brings the same story of a larger-than-average measurement. The hypoxic (no oxygen) 'dead zone' measured three times larger than our national goal, measuring in at over 6,300 square miles; an area larger than the state of Connecticut. It is a stark reminder that we must be doing more, not less, to protect clean water across the Mississippi River Basin. Friends of the Mississippi River’s, Peter LaFontaine, breaks down this year’s measurement and solutions to the problems here.

It’s time for a new vision
Now, we have a great opportunity to do something different. Let’s break this cycle of the same headlines year after year. The Mississippi River Restoration and Resilience Initiative (or MRRRI) is one new tool we can support right now. Matt Rota of Healthy Gulf in Louisiana recently shared that, “this legislation would create a Federal office focused on the health of the Mississippi and would include significant funds dedicated to nitrogen and phosphorus pollution that feeds the Dead Zone”.

The MRRRI Act, or H.R. 4202, was introduced by Congresswoman Betty McCollum earlier this summer. Take action to support a new vision for the Mississippi River now by emailing or calling your congressperson (don't worry, it's easy to take action!).

The Dead Zone is three times larger than it 'should' be. Image: LUMCON/NOAA results from their July 25 - August 1, 2021, Gulf Hypoxia Zone measurement cruise.
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This blog post was extracted from an email sent by 1 Mississippi on September 2, 2021.
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Fishers & Farmers Website - a great resource!

4/25/2021

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Fishers and Farmers' outreach work is helping people connect in their local watersheds around the water they share.  F&F programs Online and On-Air are must-see's - click the picture below and take a look at their resources.
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You can learn about upcoming radio programs (like the May 15 broadcast of Neighbor to Neighbor with Pam Jahnke, which will focus on the Cedar River and Black Hawk Creek watersheds) and live conversations (like Boots on the Ground, an upcoming interactive conversation on May 20  focused on the Polk County, Iowa, Soil and Water Conservation District), as well as find recordings of past sessions that take you all around the Upper Mississippi.  
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Fishers and Farmers has been funding stream and farm projects for 10 years.  The Project Funding page on their website provides information on the types of projects that have been funded and the partners involved in the work.  

LWV UMRR has featured the work of Fishers and Farmers in blog posts and educational programs several times in our five-year history.  Most recently, we had a talk by Heidi Kueler and Black Hawk Creek watershed partners on Feb 1, 2021.  You can watch the video of this presentation on the LWV UMRR Blog at "Watershed-scale work to improve soil and water quality".  
Fishers & Farmers' website also features an interactive map you can use to explore the rivers and streams in your area.  Click the link above or the map to the right to go to the map and then scroll and expand to find your home.  You can then zoom in and find the watershed boundaries for the rivers and streams in your area.

The map below shows the watershed of Black Hawk Creek as it flows into Waterloo, Iowa, and the Cedar River.  This tool can help you to understand the area you live in and identify the water resources around you.  Is your watershed urban or agricultural?  What highways run through?  What are the threats to the water?  
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Fishers and Farmers' website has many excellent resources - take a look today!  Thanks to F&F for their work to bring people together and improve soil health and water quality in the Upper Mississippi Basin!  
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Chris Jones - Nitrogen Discharge from Iowa Rivers

3/1/2021

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Iowa is famous for the livestock it produces - the number of hogs in Iowa in 2020 was more than twice that in the next highest state - more than 24,000 hogs.  Iowa is also the top producer in chickens and 7th highest in cattle.  All these animals eat a lot of corn and soybeans and they make a lot of manure.  

Chris Jones is a Research Engineer at the Iowa Institute of Hydraulics and Engineering, and he has a chatty and informative blog where he analyzes and reports on  Iowa water data.  
In his March 1, 2021 post, Jones compiled data from the monitoring of Iowa watersheds since 2003.  His post documents his data sources and explains his methodology.  The graph above shows the amount of nitrogen being discharged from Iowa on the major rivers.  The green line is the rivers discharging to the Missouri River, and the blue line is the rivers going directly to the Upper Mississippi.  The red line is the total discharge.  Jones' data shows that the total nitrogen discharge has doubled since 2003.  

In 2019, Jones wrote a post that compared the impact of the population of livestock to the human population of major cities.  Our speaker at the UMRR session, David Osterberg, quoted Chris Jones  as he talked about the need for a stronger approach to nutrient management.  You can watch the video of Osterberg's talk via the link in this UMRR Blog post.  Chris Jones' blog post that Osterberg quoted is found at this link.  

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Ag-Urban Partnership for Water Quality - Trading Guidance published, pilot project planned

3/1/2021

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In our December blog post,  we told you about the Ag-Urban Partnership Forum hosted by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.   In a recent email, Katrina Kessler of MPCA  said:

"I am reaching out to let you know that the MPCA recently published a detailed Water Quality Trading Guidance document and a companion website that provide a high-level introduction to the concept of water quality trading. Water quality trading provides a mechanism and legal framework for regulated wastewater and stormwater sources to engage in watershed-based water quality restoration and protection partnerships, and is closely related to the ecosystem services marketplace ideas presented at the Ag-Urban Partnership Forum.
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The Water Quality Trading Guidance is available on the MPCA’s water quality trading webpage. I encourage you to visit the website and, if you are interested, review the guidance document.
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I am also pleased to share that the MPCA, in coordination with the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) and Board of Water and Soil Resources (BWSR), will be initiating a pilot project to increase awareness and participation in water quality trading opportunities. We are excited to work with local resource managers and agricultural producers to identify how state agencies and local partners can work on innovative water quality solutions."

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We will continue to follow developments and share them on the blog.  Trading is an important option for reducing nonpoint source pollution.  Read more about MPCA's efforts in trading on their website's trading page.  

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Ag-Urban Partnership Forum on Water Quality

12/20/2020

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 The problems of water quality are shared by rural and urban Minnesotans.  The solutions have to be shared, too.  
The need to reduce the amount of pollutants that go in to the river unites both agricultural and industrial interests.  To help to bridge the ag-urban divide and unite interests, forums have been organized to bring people together.  The second annual forum was held on December 16, 2020.  

According to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency's post on the conference, ""The key issue initially fueling the conferences centers on the question, how can the urban and rural agriculture worlds work together to address water quality and other environmental issues? Cities face daunting costs for wastewater treatment. Agriculture dominates the rural landscape, and has a major impact on water quality. What if both worked together?

While environmental quality is the goal, getting there is all about the economy. And climate change.

Leif Fixen of The Nature Conservancy promoted the Ecosystem Service Marketplace Consortium (ESMC), which is developing the processes and technology that would pay farmers for “carbon credits” — a measure of capturing carbon to help mitigate global warming."  Click the picture below for more information on this pilot project.
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The first Ag-Urban Partnership Forum was held on November 18, 2019 and is documented in a detailed .pdf found at this post on the Minnesota River Data Center website.  
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Voluntary measures will not solve the nitrogen runoff problems - a talk with David Osterberg

10/14/2020

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Nutrient-laden runoff from Iowa's farm fields is a major contributor to the "Dead Zone' in the Gulf of Mexico.  In this discussion, David Osterberg lays out options for dealing with the problem.   He makes a potent case that getting enough farmers to take voluntary measures to reduce runoff, as currently hoped for in the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy, is not going to work.  As LWV UMRR Vice-chair Mary Ellen Miller points out in this meeting: Voluntary [change in ag practices as recommended in the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy] is not working, and it's not working because too many federal dollars are going to support the current practices." 
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                     <<<<Advance video to 5:30 unless you want to see the chit chat as we all gather for the Zoom.>>>>
David Osterberg is a former Iowa state representative who was chairman of the House Energy and Environmental Protection Committee as well as the Agriculture Committee. David was the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in 1998 and worked for one year as a consultant to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. David holds an M.S. in water resources management and another in agricultural economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is professor emeritus in the Department of Occupational and Environmental Health at the University of Iowa, and a staff member at Common Good Iowa.
This discussion was part of the LWV Upper Mississippi October 12 meeting.   The LWV UMRR Board meets on the first Monday of even numbered months (if you do the math, that's 6 times/year).  Before Covid, we traveled around the watershed getting to know people and issues across our four-state area.  At each Board meeting, we'd have an educational/advocacy session on local issues where local Leaguers and the general public joined us. Now, everything's virtual, so no travel, but we are still doing sessions like this on the first Monday of every even-numbered month.  Watch our newsletter for notice of upcoming events like this talk with David Osterberg!  


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Nitrogen-laden runoff - how is this affected by extreme rainfall events in the Midwest?

10/14/2020

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Climate change brings more extreme rainfall events to the Upper Mississippi River Basin according to the National Climate Assessment.   How much does this contribute to the loss of nutrients from the land and subsequent over-enrichment of our waters?  

Recent research at Iowa State University has shown that the heavy
rain events that occur only a few days a year can account for up to a third of the annual nitrogen runoff from farmland in the Mississippi River basin, according to a new study from Iowa State University scientists.  The research, uses innovative computer modeling techniques to quantify nitrogen runoff from land ecosystems into rivers and streams.   This link goes to a summary of that research.  
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Looking in more detail at the full published study, the researchers found that "Overall, >80% of the Basin total runoff and N leaching was from the rising extreme precipitation areas. Basin-wide, extreme precipitation events occurred only 8.6 days year−1 (2.4% of 365 days) on average, but they contributed to approximately one-third of annual total water yields and N yields. This is likely a conservative estimate of the contribution of extreme precipitation events as we only focus on extreme precipitation days without consideration of post-event legacy effects."  

This new understanding of the role of extreme precipitation can inform how changes can be made in fertilizer and manure application to reduce the loss of nutrients.  

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