A Unified Mississippi River - The Missing Link
After a flurry of
editorials, blogs and web postings on the need for revised
Mississippi River's management strategies in the wake of early summer floods,
new articles
are appearing calling public attention to doing things differently on the River.
The calls plead for stronger regulation, more creative thinking, and, at the
very least, federal recognition that 1930's-based plans for the Mississippi
River should be revised to reflect today's Mississippi River.
Most of the time, we see their reasoning. However, they miss a crucial point:
 Calls
for changes in policy - whether in response to specific events or as a result of
research findings - don't get results without a key ingredient: Voters. Policy
changes don't happen just because reasoning is sound. They happen because the
people who elect the decision makers unify and ask their elected officials to do
something. All the articulate editorials and all the thorough research won't
result in new strategies for the whole Mississippi River. Unified action by the
people in Mississippi River-based communities will.
A
unified Mississippi River community, or constituency, is
the missing link to new, future, and whole river approaches. We all decry the
absence of whole-watershed or whole-river approaches to the Mississippi River
that fit with its present and future role as America's Waterway. What we
overlook is that most of the people who seek these new strategies are spread
throughout the Mississippi River watershed - a vast area roughly equivalent to
31 states or two-thirds of the country. This results in wide and disparate
appeals to not only federal, but state, county and municipal authorities,
further jumbling the mix of regulatory approaches to the Mississippi River.
Without realizing it, we're contributing to a continuation of the problem of
disjointed and geo-politically-driven approaches to the River. If we don't take
time to build a unified constituency around
citizen-based
goals for the Mississippi, we'll just keep producing the
place-based solutions of the past.
What's needed is not only a unified approach to the future of the Mississippi
River, but also a
unified constituency capable of supporting and advocating
that approach. Building a constituency may seem like a distraction, but it's one
of those necessary policy building blocks, like research, funding and promotion.
As advocates for the River, we've done all of the above... EXCEPT build the
constituency.
It's not too late. Since there's been an awakened public sense of the
Mississippi River as a watershed system, now is the time to act. We at America's
Waterway believe
civic engagement processes are best for building the common
ground needed for a whole-river constituency. We see the deliberative democracy
approach of AmericaSpeaks,
conducted in a
National
Dialogue for the Future of the Mississippi River, as the avenue for
building a whole-Mississippi-River constituency.
But we'd like to hear from you. What do you think about a constituency for the
Mississippi River? Do you agree the Mississippi needs a constituency of its own?
Are you interested in helping us build one? You can reach us on
Facebook or join
the discussion on Twitter. Or leave us a comment on our
blog. Join with us to
build the missing link for the Mississippi River.
 World
Rivers Day-Sept. 25
Launched in 2005 as a complement to the United Nations' Decade of Water for
Life, this world recognition of the importance of rivers to sustainable life and
livelihood is marked each year on the last Sunday of September. It is meant not
only as a day of public recognition, but also as a day to focus on stewardship
of rivers. Make the Mississippi River your focus this coming Sept. 25.
Security & Sustainability Forum - Sept 28 with
Lynn Scarlett
 The
former Interior Department Deputy Secretary Lynn Scarlett will host a panel
discussion webinar that features, among others, Paul Harrison, sr. director of
the Environmental
Defense Fund's Mississippi River Delta Restoration Project and
focuses on Adaptations to Protect Physical Infrastructure in a Changing Climate.
The webinar is free and part of a 5-part series for practitioners in government,
industry and academia. To learn more and register:
http://securityandsustainabilityforum.org/new/
 National
Great Rivers Research and Education Center
to Host 1st Biennial RiverWatch Symposium
Oct. 4 stream stewards, teachers, environmentalists, students and retired
researchers and business people will gather in Peoria, Illinois to review a
RiverWatch Progress Report and recognize recipients of the River Citizen Award.
The RiverWatch Progress Report is expected to reveal over 15 years of data
gathered by these stalwart Citizen Scientists throughout Illinois.
Mississippi River Cultural Highlight:
Memphis'
Mud Island Mississippi River Scale Model
 If
you, like many in the U.S., wondered through the summer why the Mississippi
River does what it does when it floods, this model tells the story. An
engineering feat in itself, this model replicates the twists and turns of
America's Waterway, its ups and downs, and its cities and dams. In a five-block
area, this model addresses the question: Is the Mississippi River a force of
nature or a force of engineering design? |
