.
Thirty-five years after the passage of the Clean Water Act, a new study
says state and federal governments need to coordinate their efforts to
protect the water of the Mississippi River.
The
study released Tuesday by the National Research Council calls on the
Environmental Protection Agency to coordinate the efforts affecting the
river and the northern Gulf of Mexico where its water is discharged.
Runoff
from Minnesota’s and Wisconsin’s cities and farm fields carries
sediment and nutrients into the Mississippi. These pollutants combine
with others from the 10 states that border the 2,300-mile river and
contribute to a dead zone in the gulf.
The report points to a
lack of a centralized monitoring program, limited interstate
collaboration, urbanization and agricultural runoff from Midwest corn
production as compounding factors.
“The limited attention being
given to monitoring and managing the Mississippi’s water quality does
not match the river’s significant economic, ecological and cultural
importance,” said research committee chair David Dzomback.
Norman Senjem agreed. He’s the Mississippi River basin coordinator for the Minnesota
Pollution Control Agency and is currently three years into a five-year water quality study of Lake Pepin.
Individual
states tend to see the river as a federal zone, so it gets ignored for
water quality programs and funding, Senjem said.
Pollutant
standards also vary from state to state and some may have a parameter
for one pollutant a bordering state doesn’t, said Rob Burdis, an
aquatic biologist for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources who
monitors the Mississippi River near Lake City year-round for the U.S.
Geological Survey.
U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, D-La Crosse, said the report highlights the need for better cooperation between states and federal agencies.
“The
Environmental Protection Agency clearly needs to make the health of the
river a greater priority,” he said in a press release, “and work
alongside states in better regulating the sediment and nutrient flow.”
Kind
also said a bill he authored, the Upper Mississippi River Basin
Protection Act, would effectively improve water quality using a
public-private approach. The bill has passed the House and is pending a
hearing in the Senate.
Betsy Lawton, a staff attorney with Madison-based Midwest Environmental Advocates, was more explicit.
“EPA’s
policy allowing states to drag their feet must stop now,” she said.
“EPA must require states to comply with the Clean Water Act and adopt
nitrogen and phosphorous pollution limits to protect our nation’s most
vital river system.”
In recent years, actions have reduced much
point-source pollution, such as direct discharges from factories and
wastewater treatment plants.
But the report notes that many of
the river’s remaining pollution problems stem from nonpoint sources,
such as fertilizers and sediments that enter the river and its
tributaries through runoff. Nutrients from fertilizers create
water-quality problems in the river itself and contribute to an
oxygen-deficient “dead zone” in the northern Gulf of Mexico.
Most
pollutants in the Winona and La Crosse portion of the Mississippi come
from the Minnesota River, Burdis said. Nutrients like nitrogen and
phosphorous are at the highest rates Burdis has seen in his 17 years of
monitoring.
A cubic city block of sediment pours into Lake Pepin
each year from the Minnesota River, filling it in at 10 times the rate
as 200 years ago, Senjem said.
While some sediment and nutrient
runoff comes from urban development along blufftops as in La Crescent,
the vast majority is a result of farmers planting more row crops like
corn rather than alfalfa to meet the ethanol demand, said both Burdis
and Senjem.
“Because of climate change and more intense storms like that flood, getting that heavy rain on a highly-altered
landscape that isn’t as resilient as pioneer times,” Senjem said.
The
National Research Council is an arm of the National Academy of
Sciences, an independent organization chartered by Congress to advise
the government on scientific matters. The study was sponsored by the
McKnight Foundation of Minneapolis.
This story contains information from the Associated Press. Contact reporter Amber Dulek at (507) 453-3513 or amber.dulek@lee.net.
.
