Environmental Defense Applauds Mississippi River Pollution Bill

Environmental Defense today praised Rep. Ron Kind (D-WI) for introducing legislation to coordinate and monitor efforts to reduce polluted runoff in the Upper Mississippi River.

The Upper Mississippi River Basin Act of 2001 would establish a monitoring network and use computer models to help target voluntary, incentive-based conservation programs. The bill would also create an advisory council of federal, state and local officials and private interests to coordinate clean-up efforts and share information throughout the five-state basin.

“Representative Kind’s bill will give decision-makers the information they need to target major sources of polluted runoff,” said Environmental Defense attorney Scott Faber.

Runoff from farmland and city streets is the primary reason large segments of the Mississippi remain too polluted to support fishing and swimming, and is contributing to a large “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico where marine life cannot survive.

Because fertilizer applications have tripled in the last 40 years, fertilizer applied to farmland contributes approximately half of the nutrients washed into the Gulf, according to federal studies. The Upper Mississippi River basin — which drains parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois and Missouri — is a disproportionately large source of those nutrients, studies show.

A “dead zone” action plan endorsed in January by states bordering the Mississippi called for a 30% reduction in the size of the dead zone by 2015. The task force also called for the creation of sub-basin coordinating committees by summer 2001, the development of computer models by fall 2001, and expanded monitoring efforts by spring 2002.

“If Congress acts quickly on Representative Kind’s bill, we can stay on schedule and begin to bring life back to the northern part of the Gulf,” Faber said.

For more information on the dead zone, visit: www.epa.gov/OWOW/msbasin/.