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Senate Bill Provides for Ecosystem Restoration of the Upper Mississippi River

Springfield, IL—June 10, 2004—The Upper Mississippi River and Illinois River Waterway Navigation and Ecosystem Restoration Bill, S. 2470, recently introduced in the U.S. Senate, authorizes navigation improvements and a $1.46 billion ecosystem restoration program.  The Nature Conservancy strongly supports a well-funded, robust ecosystem restoration program for the Upper Mississippi River basin. Senators Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Peter G. Fitzgerald (R-Ill.), co-sponsors of the bill, recognize the importance of these two rivers to the human, environmental and economic health of the region.

This legislation acknowledges the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers as “a nationally significant ecosystem and a nationally significant commercial navigation system” and authorizes historic investments in ecosystem restoration. The proposed restoration program will help return these rivers to functioning, sustainable ecosystems, while also meeting navigation needs. Sufficient levels of appropriations are essential for the successful implementation of this large-scale restoration program.

“The provisions in this bill form a good foundation for a program to restore these American treasures, and its funding should be at a level commensurate with the importance of these natural resources,” notes Bruce W. Boyd, executive director of the Conservancy in Illinois. “In order to ensure that adequate money is available to meet important restoration needs, funding needs to be linked to annual appropriations for operation and maintenance of the navigation system and to the navigation improvements authorized in this bill,” Boyd said. 

The Conservancy has a long history of working with partners on conservation projects within the Upper Mississippi River and Illinois River basins.  Recently, the Conservancy and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Mississippi Valley Division signed a regional memorandum of agreement to promote collaborative water management of the Mississippi River. The agreement includes the promotion of restoration and conservation of a functional floodplain ecosystem and the effective management of water resources.

The Conservancy’s goal is to conserve and restore the ecological structure, function and dynamics of the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers’ basins, and their diverse freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. Key strategies for accomplishing this include naturalizing flows, restoring floodplains in these river valleys and promoting compatible agricultural and forestry practices within their basins.  This legislation makes important strides toward advancing these restoration goals.

The implementation process must be based on sound science and should follow an adaptive management process, according to Michael Reuter, chief conservation officer for the Conservancy in Illinois and the Upper Mississippi River coordinator.  The bill incorporates the creation of an advisory panel to provide independent guidance to the Corps on its implementation. “The restoration program will need to integrate existing federal and state programs, along with private programs, in order to maximize efforts and to reduce duplicating efforts,” said Reuter. “Successful integration of these programs will help to create synergism,” he noted.

While this bill only authorizes a 15-year restoration program, the Corps’ draft feasibility report identifies the need for a 50-year restoration program to reverse the impacts of 100 years of ecological decline. “To ultimately achieve the goal of an environmentally sustainable navigation system, a 50-year restoration program, as framed in the Corps’ report, must be implemented,” notes Reuter. “The decline of this ecosystem did not happen overnight. It will take a lifetime of effort to restore the system to a functioning level where it can sustain the benefits that a large-floodplain river system is capable of providing,” he said.

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The Nature Conservancy is a leading international, non-profit organization that preserves the plants, animals and natural communities representing the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. To date, the Conservancy and its more than 1 million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped to preserve more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. In Illinois, its nearly 40,000 members have helped to protect approximately 76,000 acres of Illinois for future generations to enjoy. Visit us on the Web at nature.org.