Greater Effort Needed to Monitor Mississippi River

Greater Effort Needed to Monitor Mississippi River



October 2007

 The U.S. Environmental Protection 
Agency has failed to coordinate and oversee state water quality activities 
along the Mississippi River, leaving the nation's largest waterway an 
"orphan," the National Research Council says in a new report. 
Greater effort is needed to ensure that the river is monitored and 
evaluated as a single system, said the committee that wrote the report. 
The 10 states along the river corridor all conduct their own programs to 
monitor water quality, but state resources devoted to these programs vary 
widely, and there is no single program that oversees the entire river, 
making it an "orphan" in terms of monitoring and assessment of its water 
quality, the report says. 
"The limited attention being given to monitoring and managing the 
Mississippi's water quality does not match the river's significant 
economic, ecological, and cultural importance," said committee chair David 
Dzombak. 
Dr. Dzombak is Blenko Professor of Environmental Engineering and director 
of the Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research at 
Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. 
"In addressing water-quality problems in the river, EPA and the states 
should draw upon the useful experience in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, 
where for decades the agency has been working together with states 
surrounding the bay to reduce nutrient pollution and improve water 
quality. EPA should demonstrate similar leadership for the Mississippi 
River." 

The report evaluates efforts to implement the Clean Water Act along the 
Mississippi, which flows 2,300 miles from Minnesota's Lake Itasca to the 
Gulf of Mexico. The river is used by millions of people along a 10-state 
corridor for drinking water, commercial shipping, and recreation. Many 
ecosystems depend on the river's water quality. 
Measures taken under the Clean Water Act have successfully reduced much 
pollution from specific points, such as direct discharges from factories 
and wastewater treatment plants. 
But many of the Mississippi's pollution problems stem from nonpoint 
sources, mainly nutrients and sediments that enter the river and its 
tributaries through runoff, the committee observed.
Nitrogen and phosphorous from fertilizers create water quality problems in 
the river and contribute to an oxygen-deficient "dead zone" in the 
northern Gulf of Mexico. Currently, there are no water quality standards 
for such nutrients along most of the Mississippi River. 
Sediments present a more complex problem, the report says. In the upper 
Mississippi, they are too plentiful and considered a pollutant, while in 
the lower river, sediments are too scarce, leading to coastal wetlands 
loss in southern Louisiana. 
The Clean Water Act addresses nonpoint source pollution only in a limited 
way, and the Mississippi's water quality also is affected by physical 
structures which the act cannot alter, such as dams and levees, so this 
law alone cannot solve all the river's water quality problems, the report 
acknowledges. 
Under the Clean Water Act, states are responsible for establishing water 
quality standards and for monitoring water quality, but many states 
bordering the Mississippi River devote few resources to monitoring and 
assessing the river, and there is little cooperation among states. 
In five states, the Upper Mississippi River Basin Association has promoted 
cooperative water quality studies and other initiatives, but there is no 
similar organization for the lower-river states, which should strive to 
create one, the report suggests. 
The Clean Water Act gives most authority for coordinating and overseeing 
interstate water quality to the EPA, the report observes, recommending 
that the agency exert federal leadership. That should involve work with 
states and the four regional EPA offices along the river corridor to 
develop water quality standards to protect the river and the northern Gulf 
of Mexico. 
The agency also should work with states to develop a federal Total Maximum 
Daily Load, TMDL, for nutrient pollutants in the river and northern Gulf, 
the committee reccomends. Required by the Clean Water Act, a TMDL is a 
numerical limit on the amount of a pollutant that a water body can accept 
and still meet federal water quality standards. 
In addition, the EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture should work 
together more closely to reduce harmful runoff from agriculture, the 
committee advises. 
USDA's conservation programs for protecting water quality should target 
areas that contribute higher levels of nutrient and sediment runoff to the 
river, the committee said. Growing interest in biofuels - which may 
increase crop production and also nutrient runoff from use of fertilizers 
- makes improved EPA-USDA cooperation in the Mississippi River basin all 
the more urgent, warns the report. 
The study was sponsored by the McKnight Foundation of Minneapolis. Copies 
of "Mississippi River Water Quality and the Clean Water Act: Progress, 
Challenges, and Opportunities" is on the Internet at http://www.nap.edu. 

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