Mississippi Headwaters Board (MHB)
www.mississippiheadwaters.org

About the organization
Mission: To consistently protect and enhance the scientific, natural, cultural, historic, and recreational values of the first 400 miles of the Mississippi River. This is done through stewardship, education, and partnerships.

Respondent: Jane E. Van Hunnik, executive director

What are policymakers doing to enhance the current and future health of Minnesota's rivers? What should they be doing?
Research, monitoring, and planning.
1.) Policymakers rely on information and research to identify problem areas of the river and protection processes that are needed.
2.) Monitoring is conducted to determine the health of waters, trends that may affect water as a future economic/environmental resource.
3.) Long range planning is critical for implementation of preventive measures that protect and enhance the resource. Prevention is 10 percent of the cost of remediation, but requires forethought to be effective.

River policymakers must address diverse and often competing elements such as the environment, commerce, flood control, recreation, and land use—but from your point of view, what overarching values should guide how we use, treat, and manage rivers?
My point of view: Universal values that benefit all people will address basic health, safety, and welfare. People are dependent on the natural systems to sustain basic needs such as clean air, water, and land. Therefore, management of natural systems, how they are used and treated, should reflect the needs maintaining healthy people.

How can we manage the conflict of private land use and the best management practices for our rivers?
First we must learn from the history of land use and the origins of personal property rights. What roles do social issues, and education play in how people treat one another? How do social groups survive? What constitutes survival to certain groups? Are luxuries considered necessities? Why do conflicts exist? Are there creative alternatives to certain modes of survival? How can peaceful co-existence succeed? Should we live more simply so that others may simply live? What is our obligation to other people, other generations? Can we not manage conflict by learning more about and caring more for each other?

When we protect water, the air, land, habitat, and all other resources are benefited by virtue of the hydrologic cycle which supports all natural systems. Management of conflct requires knowledge of past history, empathy toward one another, establishing common values and goals, desire to help find win/win solutions.

How important is the development of a land-use plan in the watersheds that feed our rivers? Do you have a land-use plan?
The land-use plan is where the rubber hits the road in watershed management. Here is where research, the best available technology, and the best efforts of humans interact on behalf of one another. The role of government is to collectively do for citizens what we as individuals cannot do for ourselves. Conversely, individual acts of pollution collectively are hurting our rivers in a way we could never achieve alone. Therefore planning for the wise use of our land may be the single most important tool to insure the perpetuation and health of our species. Yes, the MHB has a land-use plan.

What programs are available—and are more needed—to educate and inform citizens, river users, river property owners, and policymakers about river issues?
Numerous programs are implemented by organizations and agencies on an "as needed basis." Until the agencies and organizations we have in place receive the proper moral and financial support to do their job, it is difficult to say if more or less are needed. Programs implemented are by the legislature, PCA, DNR, BWSR, joint powers boards (such as MHB), counties, municipalities, townships, water districts, and other local levels of government partnering with federal counterparts. Moral support is most critical as finances follow the attitudes of the population and their leadership.

Minnesota is special in that water resources are many and highly valued by an informed and educated citizenry. That is why Minnesota's water is healthier than most states' water. Minnesota agencies have succeeded! Environmental awareness is a luxury of a first-world country. It is not possible in third-world countries where meager survival is the day-to-day business. Uneducated or uninformed (probably well-meaning) efforts reduce us to third-world circumstances. Therefore ongoing education is critical to success.

River values are important. Rivers are the backbone of many of our water resources. Informed river users, river citizens, and river policymakers modify their thinking on how to best achieve those values for the common good through the education/information process. Therefore it must be ongoing.

How does Mississippi River quality change as it flows from the headwaters to the Twin Cities and beyond? What is Minnesota's accountability to the states that have to treat, filter, and use the water after it leaves Minnesota?
The river is clear and pristine in the Headwaters area where there is little human land use impact. Water clarity degrades as the river flows through urban areas or areas of intense use/disturbance. It cleans itself up as it goes through swamps and natural shoreline areas. It remains visibly clean until it leaves the MHB corridor in Morrison County.

The downstream stretches are visibly impacted by more intense land use and higher population densities along tributaries and the mainstem. Minnesotans should strive toward being good neighbors to downstream users.

How does air pollution affect our rivers?
Air pollutants become part of the hydrologic cycle as they become part of rain water, which recharges aquifers and surface waters. The contaminated waters are ingested by people, fish, wildlife, and plants, becoming part of the food chain. As waste is generated by these users, it is reintroduced onto the land, water, or evaporates into the air where the cycle begins again. For example, we see mercury pollution in fish due to air pollution.

What joint efforts (other than testing) have begun statewide to improve the quality of our rivers for drinking and fishing?
Many local agencies (MHB, for one) partnering with the Army Corps of Engineers, the Chippewa National Forest, Minnesota Department of Health, DNR, PCA, BWSR, and local units of government to improve practices and provide consistent implementation of minimum protection standards.

What measures, if any, are being taken to alert the wide range of cultures living along our rivers not to swim in, drink, or eat fish from the waters of the Mississippi River?
The Minnesota Department of Health, DNR, and tribal governments, and zoning authorities are in charge of public health and safety alerts. However, many affected tourism areas are against such alerts in fear of negative reactions from tourists. This lack of support makes enforcement and education activities very difficult and stressful for dedicated workers in the affected agencies trying to do a good job. They deserve our support.