The Minnesota Project (MP)
www.mnproject.org

About the organization
The Minnesota Project is a non-profit organization dedicated to sustainable development and environmental protection in Minnesota. We work to increase the viability of rural communities. We connect rural leaders and perspectives to state and national policy development. We celebrate the enduring value of rural landscapes, lifestyles, and culture. We promote the understanding that socially, economically, and environmentally rural communities are vital to our society.

Respondent: Loni Kemp, senior policy analyst

How important to you is the river or stream nearest your home, and why?
Quality rivers will ensure a high standard of living for the future. Good river quality sustains life for wildlife and aquatic species, as well as drinking water. Clean and healthy rivers are vital to the food chain and overall human health.

How can citizens find out about the condition of the river nearest their homes or communities?
Contact local Soil and Water Conservation Districts, The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, or environmental organizations that focus on river quality.

What can homeowners do to make their land and property more river friendly? What can farmers do? Business owners?
Overall, citizens need to have a working understanding of how their actions can affect the health of a river or stream, whether they are a homeowner, farmer, or business owner. Once citizens learn how rivers can be degraded they can begin to take action steps to improve the condition of rivers and streams. Generally homeowners and businesses can reduce or eliminate the amount of chemical fertilizers or pesticides applied to lawns. Farmers can also reduce or eliminate the use of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers though best management practices.

What are the most important actions citizens can take to help clean up Minnesota's rivers?
Homeowners and businesses can contact local environmental groups to receive information on how to clean up nearby rivers and streams. Farmers can receive information from the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) on how to apply for the Conservation Security Program (CSP), a program created in the 2002 Farm Bill.

What are policymakers doing to enhance the current and future health of Minnesota's rivers? What should they be doing?
The 2002 Farm Bill was just passed by the U.S. Congress, with expanded conservation programs, and the Conservation Security Program (CSP), the largest new conservation program to emerge from the bill. This program, available in 2003, will reward farmers for implementing conservation practices on working lands. Many of the conservation practices farmers will be implementing will protect nearby streams and rivers. Policymakers should continue to create programs that will enhance not only river quality, but overall environmental quality.

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?
Each of these values are important guides in addressing river quality. Sustainable use means that none of the uses degrade the resource for future generations, and that should be our overarching guide. Farmers can address these values by enrolling in the Conservation Security Program. By implementing on farm practices such as water conservation, water quality management, fish and wildlife habitat conservation, resource-conserving crop rotations, soil and chemical runoff can be mitigated. This will improve water and land quality.

How can we manage the conflict of private land use and the best management practices for our rivers?
Citizens need to recognize the ramifications of poor management practices. Citizens need to demand improvements to the quality of rivers, in order to ensure a healthy environment for future generations. By implementing best management practices on working lands, citizens can dramatically affect the quality of rivers and streams in the United States.

What programs are available—and are more needed—to educate and inform citizens, river users, river property owners, and policymakers about river issues?
Since the Conservation Security Program is very new, it offers many exciting opportunities to provide farmers with the tools to improve water quality. Education needs to be done by government offices implementing the program, farm groups with a working knowledge of the program, and farmers who have already implemented conservation practices on their own farms. Communicating the opportunities of the CSP to each farm and encouraging sign up will help improve the overall quality of our nations rivers. The CSP is not the only program available to improve river quality, but it is the newest available to farmers. Homeowners and businesses should contact local environmental groups to find out what programs are available for them to improve river quality.

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?
As the river flows from the headwaters to the metro and beyond it encounters larger populations in smaller concentrated areas. Runoff from population activities enters the river at a higher level as the population grows. The rivers several tributaries also encounter large spans of farmland. Runoff from farmland will flow into the tributaries, eventually emptying out in the Mississippi River. Industrial, urban, and farmland runoff is carried downstream until it empties out into the Gulf of Mexico, where a hypoxic dead zone has been created due to high nutrient runoff, especially from farm fertilizers. Minnesota and other states along the Mississippi need to be held accountable for poor management practices that allows river quality to degrade. Actions should be taken by farmers, landowners, and businesses to improve river health from the headwaters to the Gulf of Mexico.

How does air pollution affect our rivers?
Scientists are finding that pesticides and nutrients from fertilizers and livestock wastes are not only a runoff problem—they also evaporate into the air and come down again at detectable levels in rainfall—proving once again that everything has to go somewhere, and everything is connected to everything else.

Further questions to consider?
Is it possible to employ enough conservation and best management practices on farmlands to make up for the fact that too much land is in intensive rowcrop production?

Is it possible to design a new farm policy that doesn't heavily subsidize the very crops that are most abusive to water quality, namely corn, soybeans, and sugar beets?