Thank you Secretary Vilsack for $320 million to improve the health of the Mississippi River Basin. As an Iowan, you obviously get that the whole Mississippi River needs to be addressed instead of one town, state or region at a time. $320 million is a nice way to jump start what is recognizably a major effort. (more…)
Archive for September, 2009
Here’s To Your Health, Mississipppi River Basin
Monday, September 28th, 2009How is the Mississippi River Like a Puzzle Box Cover?
Monday, September 21st, 2009Over the years I’ve been involved in numerous campaigns to obtain the public’s support. From environmental to health care issues , economic impact statements are always a key to making the case for public support.
Oddly, when it comes to the Mississippi, we don’t have centralized, River-wide data to make that case. It occurs to me this may well be one of the reasons the Mississippi continues to be undervalued by the nation. It’s not too different from trying to put together a puzzle without the benefit of the whole picture.
What would the economic picture for the Mississippi look like? There’s the obvious and the not-so-obvious information. When we think of the economics of the America’s Waterway, we logically expect data on shipping. More than likely this would be a calculation based on tons shipped and costs of goods. It might even involve a comparison with other shipping methods such as highways and air transportation.
Tourism is the second obvious economic factor on the Mississippi River. Tourism destinations are used to evaluating their economic impact, so a base of information probably exists. But, in the case of the Mississippi River, tourism’s economic impact would have to include how far tourists traveled to see the River, the number of people traveling the Great River Road and the numbers of people spending time on the River as a destination. It becomes complicated fast, but maybe the Misssissippi River Parkway Commission could begin collecting and publishing their data as a start.
Then there’s the not-so-obvious valuation of the Mississippi River as a natural resource. Often I think we say this is incalculable. But that would be a “cop out”. The fact is in America we don’t respond to threats to natural resources until we put a valuation on them. Fortunately — or unfortunately — this is the American way. So where would we start?
One place that’s already started is in agriculture and academia. Their assessments use crops and seafood. Presently they focus on impacts of the dead zone. While this is valuable information — and great for making the case against nonsource point pollution — it only begins to assign an economic value to the Mississippi River for the country.
Another valuation that could be timely – and might even have started – is the economic impact the new hydropower experimentation will have on energy saving in the U.S. Called hydrokinetic power, a collaboration of the Tulane/Xavier Center for Bioenvironmental Research is evaluating this ultra-new technology and its impact on the Mississippi River. Since they are just newly formed, I wonder if they could take on some of the documentation — especially in the hydrokinetic realm — of economic impacts?
These economic factors are all pieces of an extensive puzzle. And the puzzle pieces - like those in a jigsaw puzzle – are individually small and seemingly disparate. But when they all come together, the economic picture they present is not unlike the box cover we need to put a jigsaw puzzle together. Without that box cover, we’re just sorting pieces according to similarities we see in sizes and colors. We need to start building that boxcover framework for the Mississippi, if we are to make the case that the whole river is truly connected.
Please comment here if you know of research being done on econmic impacts along the whole Mississippi River corridor or even in your own region. Help us build the boxcover.
The Wild Rice Moon Shines on the Mississippi River
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009Wild Rice is Mah-NO-min in Anishinaabeminowin. This is the Ojibwe language, the Native American tribe that predominates in the northern-most section of the Mississippi River. The min part of the word rhymes with “bit”. It means seed. The first part of the word is a contraction for Manido, spirit-giver of the traditionally important and sacred food grain. Manomin gave its name to the moon (month) of harvest, typically the end of August, early September in northern Minnesota: Manominikw Giizis, the month when it was harvested. Manomin is upon us near the headwaters of America’s Waterway.
This is the month of wild rice harvest on the Mississippi River in northern Minnesota. For the Ojibwe, it’s a sacred and traditional time. For those of us along the Mississippi near the border with Canada, the Wild Rice Moon signals the change of seasons. And so it is this year, as the summer comes to a close and canoes can be seen being poled through the rice paddies that form a barrier to the higher reaches of the River’s headwaters.
This morning the local radio station, KAXE, carried the story of the wild rice harvest and its importance in today’s Ojibwe culture and economy. The spokesperson for the White Earth Reservation told of the Ojibwe’s effort to recast an economy based on natural resources such as wild rice. The Mississippi River starts within the boundaries of the Leech Lake Reservation, another Ojibwe center where ricing is part of a Native economy and part of a way of life.
The Wild Rice Moon will be in full force this Friday. Its strength and presence are already making themselves known throughout the woodlands. The moon’s fullness offsets the rapidly paling leaves, as summer turns to autumn and the Ojibwe and others seek to capture the last rays of summer inside the kernels of rice that fall heavily into canoes and other soundless water vehicles. Even the Mississippi, at its heart, seems to be closing a chapter and moving into its slumber, soundlessly and with only the fanfare of the moon.
