The Mississippi River

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The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) held a briefing that examined the environmental challenges facing the Mississippi River and solutions to address them. Spanning 10 states, the Mississippi plays a key role in tourism, commerce, biodiversity, and recreation in the United States. In particular, the river system moves hundreds of millions of tons of freight each year, serves as a home to hundreds of different fish, mammal, and amphibian species, and supports 1.3 million jobs. However, like many other river systems featured in this briefing series, the Mississippi River and the communities that depend on it face challenges such as nitrate pollution, saltwater intrusion, flooding, and low water levels—many of which are exacerbated by climate change. At this briefing, Mississippi River experts discussed the role of federal policy in advancing strategies to improve both the health and climate resilience of the river system. 

 

Highlights

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The Mississippi River basin includes 31 U.S. states. One in 12 people on Earth consume commodities transported on the Mississippi River. Challenges for Mississippi River communities include flooding, agriculture runoff, aging infrastructure, low water, disruption to navigation, and sinking lands. Every 100 minutes, the Mississippi River Delta loses a football field of wetlands, one of the highest rates of land loss globally. Success in building resilience in the Mississippi River Delta depends on governance from a science-based planning process, dedicated and protected funding streams, and public trust and support.

 

Colin Wellenkamp, Executive Director, Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative

• The Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative (MRCTI) is an association of 105 mayors representing municipalities located along the Mississippi River. To address the climate impacts the corridor is sustaining, MRCTI has developed a plan to restore the Mississippi through intergovernmental partnerships.
• The Mississippi River basin includes 31 U.S. states. One in 12 people on Earth consume commodities transported on the Mississippi River.
• Global stability, food supply, politics, and supply chains are impacted by the performance and ecological stability of the Mississippi River Basin.
• The economic and ecological wellbeing of the Mississippi River depends on cities along its banks having resilient infrastructure capable of withstanding intense heat, floods, and droughts. This is only possible by restoring and expanding natural infrastructure, such as wetlands, marshes, and forests.
• Manufacturing, the largest economic sector along the Mississippi River, is worth $500 billion and accounts for 5% of U.S. GDP. Manufacturing relies heavily on fresh water from the river.
• MRCTI partners with Ducks Unlimited to deploy the Mississippi River’s largest non-federal natural infrastructure project pipeline, organizing investments of over $100 million to bolster natural infrastructure in 100,000 acres across nine states. Co-benefits of these projects include increased protection from flooding, 11.5 million pounds of nutrient diversion, and 230,000 tons of carbon sequestered.
• The ultimate goal of these projects is to reduce the cost of a $1 billion disaster by 20%.
• Over the last 125 years, human development has disconnected the Mississippi River from the rest of the basin. The separated areas must reconnect to the main channel to allow for natural drainage.
• The Safeguarding the Mississippi River Together Act, previously introduced in the 117th Congress, proposes the creation of a federal Mississippi River Program, similar to those for the Missouri River and the Rio Grande.

 

Sarah Murdock, Senior Director of U.S. Lands and Waters Policy, The Nature Conservancy

• The Nature Conservancy (TNC) aims to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus loading in the Gulf of Mexico by 20% by 2025 and 40% by 2035, protect and restore two million acres of floodplains by 2040, and improve outcomes on 50% of row crop acres by 2030.
• Challenges for Mississippi River communities include flooding, agriculture runoff, aging infrastructure, low water, disruption to navigation, and sinking lands.
• TNC produced guidelines for a comprehensive monitoring system for the Mississippi River Basin. The system would provide standardized information on present and future flood risk, water and sediment quality, and ecosystem health. This information could be used for river forecasting, river inundation mapping, sediment transport and deposition, community resilience, conservation, restoration, and navigation. The comprehensive monitoring system would cost approximately $359 million over 25 years.
• TNC also developed the Floodplain Prioritization Tool to identify critical opportunities for floodplain conservation and restoration using nature-based solutions. Various federal agencies, including the Army Corp of Engineers, were involved in the design and implementation of the tool.
• The Mississippi River Watershed Partnership aims to create consensus around the benefits of a comprehensive program for managing the Mississippi River. One example of this collaboration is the Upper Mississippi River Restoration Program, which combines long-term resource monitoring research, systematic data acquisition, and modeling to provide a basis for management, action, and policy.

 

Amanda Moore, Senior Director, Gulf Program, National Wildlife Federation

• The Mississippi River drives a natural resource and recreation-based economy that generates nearly $500 billion in annual revenue, directly employs over 1.5 million people, and supplies more than 643 million gallons of water for domestic and industrial uses, including drinking water for more than 20 million people.
• The Mississippi also supports more than 780 species of fish and wildlife and is a migration corridor for 60% of all North American birds and 40% of U.S. migratory waterfowl.
• The Mississippi River Restoration and Resilience Initiative Act (MRRRI) (S.3754/H.R.7289), modeled after the successful Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, would create the framework, focus, and coordination necessary to reverse the decline of the Mississippi River. The four areas that MRRRI covers are improving water quality, improving community reliance, protecting and restoring wildlife habitats, and protecting vulnerable communities.
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would lead coordination and implementation of the MRRRI's action plan in partnership with other federal agencies, tribal governments, local governments, and non-governmental organizations.
• MRRRI aims to create a network of Mississippi River Science Centers through the United States Geological Survey (USGS), similar to the network of USGS Climate Adaptation Science Centers.
• Over 50% of the water that reaches the Mississippi River Delta originates from streams that may not be federally protected against pollution by the EPA, and nearly two-thirds of previously protected wetlands are no longer protected under the Clean Water Act because of the 2023 Sackett v. EPA Supreme Court decision. One consequence is that trillions of gallons of flood storage areas are now at risk from pollution.
• Federal funding is important both before and after a disaster. Two examples of this are the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) Program led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Lower Mississippi River Comprehensive Management Study.
• The Mississippi River Delta faces crises of flooding, heat, hypoxia, environmental justice, and some of the highest sea level rise rates in the United States.
• Every 100 minutes, the Mississippi River Delta loses a football field of wetlands, one of the highest rates of land loss globally.
• Success in building resilience in the Mississippi River Delta depends on governance from a science-based planning process, dedicated and protected funding streams, and public trust and support.
• It is important to connect landowners, planners, and policymakers with scientists and the government to coordinate restoration.

 

Katie Flahive, Coordinating Committee Co-Chair, U.S. EPA and Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Task Force

• Thirty-one states and two Canadian provinces contribute to agricultural pollution in the Mississippi River Basin.
• Hypoxia results from nutrient pollution reaching the Gulf of Mexico and forming an algal bloom. When the algae die off, oxygen levels drop to a point that can no longer sustain aquatic life.
• There are multiple ways to assess Mississippi River Basin loads. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Conservation Effects Assessment Project and USGS SPARROW model are key tools to help the EPA understand nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in the basin.
• The Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Task Force Coordinating Committee is a partnership of five federal agencies, 12 states, and a tribal representative from the National Tribal Water Council. States implement their own nutrient reduction strategies and federal agencies provide the necessary resources, where available and possible. The task force was formed after the Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Research and Control Act was enacted in 1998 (P.L. 105-383).
• Since the 1990s, efforts to reduce Gulf of Mexico hypoxia have centered on cutting nitrogen and phosphorus loads through state-led strategies with federal support. The 2022 Gulf Hypoxia Program, funded through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) (P.L. 117-58), dedicates $60 million to helping states, tribes, and local entities manage hypoxia.
• The main goal of the Gulf Hypoxia Action Plan is to reduce the extent of the Gulf of Mexico Hypoxic Zone to less than 5,000 square kilometers by the year 2035.
• Though a large hypoxic zone is likely to persist, reaching the 2025 interim target of reducing nitrogen and phosphorus loading by 20% brings the system closer to a turning point where measurable decreases in the hypoxic zone can be expected with future load reductions.

 

Magali Rojas, Community Engagement Coordinator, Heartland Environmental Justice Center (Hispanic Access Conservation Network)

• The Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Centers (EJ TCTACs) provide training and other assistance to build capacity for small organizations and municipalities so they can navigate federal grant application systems, develop strong grant proposals, and effectively manage grant funding. The EPA has selected 16 EJ TCTACs in partnership with the Department of Energy. The technical assistance program at Heartland Environmental Justice Center helps individuals and organizations navigate environmental justice funds, like the EJ TCTACs.
• The Mississippi River Basin covers approximately 40% of the continental United States, and 90% of the flow on the lower Mississippi comes from the Missouri River, the Ohio River, and the upper Mississippi basins.
• The 2024 Latino Voices of the Mississippi Poll captured perspectives from Latino people on the challenges confronting the Mississippi River watershed.
  • Seventy-four percent of Latinos consider pollution of rivers, lakes, and streams a very serious problem.
  • Eighty-six percent of Latinos think that PFAS forever chemicals are a major threat to the Mississippi River.
• Common threats to watersheds include invasive plant species, illegal dumping, agricultural polluters, lack of tree canopy, and polluted runoff. All these issues, and more, affect people’s physical and mental health.
• Communities facing these challenges, especially people of color, are actively working to address them at the local level.
• Key learnings from on-the-ground community work in the Mississippi River Basin are:
  • one should approach watershed issues through a holistic lens,
  • grassroots organizations need direct funding with less stringent limitations to protect natural resources, and
  • EJ TCTACs need to be fully supported by federal agencies.

 

Q&A

 

Q: How does your work in the Mississippi River engage communities throughout the basin?

Wellenkamp

• Many towns and cities face similar problems, impacts, and issues, but on different scales and with different demographics.
• When you gather mayors from vastly different cultural, geographic, and political circumstances, they work together promptly because they realize they are not alone and do not have to reinvent the wheel.

Murdock

• TNC approaches the river as a system and recognizes that everything is connected.
• When making new investments, TNC looks at the tradeoffs and where it is possible to achieve multiple benefits.

Moore

• The National Wildlife Federation’s (NWF’s) Mississippi River Program started a small steering committee that reached out to affiliates in the main stem states to build partnerships.
• The NWF is prioritizing a comprehensive river approach that looks at scalability and transferability of the projects in different communities.

Flahive

• The Hypoxia Task Force is organized with the states implementing their own nutrient reduction strategies, allowing local communities to engage with their state governments.
• The three sub-basin committees have a regional framework of engagement, where state members can engage on cross-boundary issues.
• The task force also works with a land-grant consortium of 12 land-grant universities. The group helps educate people on hypoxia at the state and federal level.

Rojas

• Connecting different state agencies and encouraging them to work together can help to more holistically address the challenges local communities face in the Mississippi River Basin.

 

Q: In an Energy and Commerce Committee hearing, the EPA Inspector General noted that the agency is struggling to administer IIJA and IRA resources. Is the Hypoxia Task Force experiencing similar challenges? In general, what are the best ways to communicate about these programs to constituents?

Flahive

• The Hypoxia Task Force has been in existence since the late 1990s, so states were ready to apply for the IIJA funding when it was made available. Approximately 115 projects have been rolled out in the last two years.

Rojas

• Stories are a powerful tool to dissect data and communicate to communities.

Murdock

• TNC is focused on telling IRA and IIJA stories about people who have been positively impacted by these investments. These investments are at scales that are actually having an impact on the Mississippi River. Continuing these investments going forward will make a big difference.

Wellenkamp

• MRCTI has been involved in a Department of Transportation PROTECT grant, paired with a USDA grant through the IRA, to re-nature the Duck River, an urban tributary of the Mississippi River. It identified two major challenges as it navigated these processes with its partners: technical assistance and authorized expenses.
• Many municipalities do not actually have the capacity to apply directly for this funding themselves and a match requirement makes it impossible.
• MRCTI does not look to EPA for funding because EPA has a hard time awarding projects that benefit and implicate multiple states at one time. More flexibility is needed.

 

Compiled by Aaliya Cassoobhoy and Joshua Cohen and edited for clarity and length. This is not a transcript.

 

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