Were totally mismanaging the Mississippi River basin and its costing us
By Ryan Schuessler (Washington Post)October 16, 2015
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[rivers] transportation systems.
$54 billion in agricultural products are transported through the basins waterways annually, according to the report, encompassing 92 percent of the United States farm exports.
Water quality. The overall quality of the water supply also received a low grade. The Initiative identified the growing dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico as a watershed-wide problem that needs to be addressed. Excess nutrients, particularly nitrates, draining into the Gulf deplete the water of oxygen, damaging the ecosystem.
Its pretty obvious that the [dead zone] has not decreased over the years, said Nancy Rabalais, Executive Director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium. The low oxygen is getting worse in severity and duration. So there is very strong evidence that the system, especially since the [1970s], has been exposed to low oxygen conditions probably each summer.
Tackling the Gulfs dead zone will begin upstream with plans to reduce the amount of nutrients draining into the basins waterways.
The nitrate concentration loads started going up in the [1950s], coinciding with fertilizer use in the watershed, Rabalais said. The high nutrients that are affecting the Gulf area are also affecting water quality in the watershed. Its not just a Gulf problem, its a watershed problem.
The Ohio and Tennessee River basin one of the six sub-basins that make up the Mississippi River watershed received one of the lowest individual grades for water quality. Forbes Walker, a soil scientist at the University of Tennessee, said erosion and soil discharge off of agricultural land are closely tied to the amount of nutrients that particular region dumps into the Gulf.
If we can control soil erosion, we can make great strides in reducing the loads that are going into the rivers and thereby into the Gulf, Walker said. We dont consider ourselves to be one of the big [contributors], but thats not to say we shouldnt address it.
Flood Control. On flood control, which also received a low grade, Kelsey said the Initiative found that the Mississippi basins levees are in poor condition, and the population of people living in floodplains is only increasing.
Those things together add up to not such great news, Kelsey said.
Unless measures are taken to prevent or better prepare communities for levee breaches, floods like the one that hit Cedar Rapids, Iowa in 2008 could become more frequent. In June of that year, heavy rains caused the swollen Cedar River to burst through the citys levees, flooding 14 percent of the city and prompting the evacuation of some 24,000 people.
Each decade as we add more data, we start realizing that these levees in some places are underbuilt, Larry Weber said. And we have to continue to fortify those levees and thats expensive.
Americas Watershed Initiative, which unveiled the report card in St. Louis on Wednesday, called for increased funding to tackle the watersheds problems to the tune of $1 billion annually.
We really need to increase the investment in the Mississippi River Basin, the Initiatives Executive Director Jordy Jordahl said. From local, state, federal, and private funds.
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/10/16/were-totally-mismanaging-the-mississippi-river-basin-and-its-costing-us/?postshare=7241445012325719