Conservation: Mississippi River Revival

By Jennifer Boudart

The Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative (MRCTI) was formed in 2012 with a mission to “give a common voice to cities along the world’s most vital working river.” Today MRCTI boasts a coalition of 104 mayors representing more than 120 communities across the Mississippi River Valley. These member mayors are uniting on initiatives to protect and promote various economic and environmental interests that depend on a healthy river system. MRCTI initiatives fall into five major categories: clean water; sustainable economies; disaster resilience and adaptation; international food and water security; and celebration of river culture, history, and heritage.

Several of the challenges MRCTI is working to address, such as flooding and threats to water quality, stem from wetland loss along the Mississippi River and its tributaries. Given that fact, several years ago, DU began conversations with MRCTI participating mayors (many of whom were DU members) about their common interest in wetlands as nature-based solutions. As DU senior scientist Dr. Ellen Herbert recalls, “We started talking about the fact that these mayors’ cities have opportunities, especially with bipartisan infrastructure legislation, to apply for funding specifically for things like flood resilience, green infrastructure, and agricultural best management practices. But mayors were not necessarily well equipped to navigate the process of applying for grants or to execute those types of projects. And those are DU’s real strengths.”

For its part, Herbert says, “DU has been trying to accelerate our mission accomplishments in the Mississippi River Valley through new partnerships, and this was an opportunity to work with a totally new group of people. In addition, MRCTI cities and towns are often eligible for grants that DU is not, so working with them could provide DU access to more diverse funding sources for mutually beneficial projects.”

In 2021, DU and MRCTI signed a memorandum of common purpose, signaling their intention to pursue projects that could create both wetlands and more resilient cities and towns. DU staff began to interview mayors and members of communities about their needs and how they might intersect with DU’s waterfowl conservation mission. The two organizations identified areas along the river where their joint efforts would have the greatest impact as well as a set of goals to provide a framework for determining which potential DU projects would be a good fit for both partners.

Two joint projects are officially under way through DU’s partnership with MRCTI that meet those goals, including flood mitigation, improved water quality, enhanced wildlife habitat, and opportunities for public recreation. The first is a 260-acre project at Horseshoe Lake State Park in southwestern Illinois. In cooperation with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, DU designed a plan to install a new pumping system for increased flood storage capacity and runoff absorption. This work will help protect the nearby communities of East St. Louis, Granite City, and Madison from flooding. DU will also enhance or restore several wetlands that will be managed for migrating waterfowl.

The second project is being delivered in northeast Iowa. DU received an $8 million grant through the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Regional Conservation Partnership Program to develop wetlands-based solutions for improving water quality. This is an important issue in the state, where agriculture is a leading industry and where water quality is threatened by excess sediments, nutrient loads, and other pollutants. Through the Scott County Iowa Working Lands for Resilient Communities project, DU will help reduce these inputs by restoring in-field and edge-of-field wetlands on private lands. Restored wetlands will help improve water quality and quantity, enhance soil health, and provide habitat for waterfowl and other wildlife. These improvements will also help reduce flooding near the Mississippi River and allow for water retention in times of drought.

Recently, MRCTI was also instrumental in helping DU successfully secure a grant of roughly $16.2 million through the US Department of Transportation’s Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-Saving Transportation program. The grant will support work on Ducks Unlimited Park at Big River Crossing in West Memphis, Arkansas. The park is a 1,500-acre project led by Big River Park Conservancy and DU. West Memphis—an MRCTI participating city—was eligible for these funds and partnered with DU on the application. DU will use the funds to restore hundreds of acres of bottomland hardwood forest within the Mississippi River floodplain. DU also plans to enhance recreational opportunities by creating new trails, spaces for outdoor education, and a dog park.

Identifying potential projects has been a two-way process, Herbert says. “DU is identifying opportunities that are close to cities, and cities are bringing us projects or in some cases directing us to other partners, like local watershed groups, who have ideas for projects. If our biologists and regional engineers feel a project has good alignment with our mission, it becomes part of the DU conservation pipeline.”

Nevertheless, finding partnership opportunities can be challenging at times. “We are dealing with a different type of system here on the lower Mississippi River,” explains Dr. Aaron Pierce, director of conservation science and planning in DU’s Southern Region. “The floodplain is not as connected to the river in the lower valley because of the mainstem levee system, which protects cities and towns from flooding but also limits some of our restoration opportunities.”

This limitation and an understanding that tributary systems are connected to the river has led DU and MRCTI to explore partnership opportunities in broader areas of the watershed that will still provide flood reduction and water quality improvements to downstream cities and towns.

Both Pierce and Herbert report that working with participating mayors has been very positive. “Just about every mayor that we have been able to talk to has been open and has had some great ideas,” Herbert notes.

One such mayor is Mitch Reynolds of La Crosse, Wisconsin—a city that has been part of MRCTI since the initiative's inception. When Mayor Reynolds was elected in 2021, he took over as the Wisconsin state chair for MRCTI. In 2023, he became one of the organization’s national co-chairs.

Reynolds is currently partnering with DU in his own community. “Our city is located at the confluence of the La Crosse River, the Black River, and the Mississippi River. Flooding of the La Crosse River is one of the most significant things we face,” he says. “We are working very closely with the DU team right now to identify floodwater storage areas along that river. If we can store more floodwater, we can lessen impacts of flooding downstream along the Mississippi River and also fulfill DU’s goal of increasing wetland preservation. We’re engaged in planning right now and are really excited about it.”

Of MRCTI’s partnership with DU, Reynolds says, “I think one of the benefits that MRCTI brings to DU is this opportunity to really engage with mayors on a systemwide level. From our perspective, we get the incredible expertise of one of the greatest conservation organizations on the planet. Mayors are universally excited about this—and it goes well beyond what can my community get? It’s also the sense that we are all going to be better from an ecological and social standpoint by working with DU. We’re laying groundwork that is going to improve the health and well-being of not only the Mississippi River writ large but all of the folks that live up and down the river and potentially around the basin.”