The Northeast-Midwest Institute launched the Upper Mississippi River Basin Program in 1995 to advance basin-wide sustainable development goals. The mission of the program is to promote policies that advance restoration of the Upper Mississippi River and its watershed through education of policy makers in Washington and the region. The Institute analyzes and distributes information on Upper Mississippi River management issues, and tracks related appropriations and legislation.

The Upper Mississippi River is a defining feature of the Midwest both environmentally and economically. With a watershed spanning almost half of the United States, the Mississippi is a multiple-use river where commercial navigation, water supply, and recreational demands must be managed to protect the region’s diverse and valuable environmental assets. Protecting the river and its tributaries is vital to the overall heath of the communities in the region, where 30 million residents rely on the Mississippi for drinking water.

The Institute works closely with the Upper Mississippi River Basin Task Force, which was formed in 1998 to disseminate information and coordinate legislative efforts on areas of agreement for the benefit of the Upper Mississippi River.

The Institute’s Upper Mississippi River Basin program has a strong focus on environmental restoration. Authorized by the 1986 Water Resources Development Act, the Upper Mississippi Environmental Management Program (EMP) has been a national model for interstate management of the river with a habitat restoration and a water quality monitoring component. Since the 2007 Water Resources Development Act authorized the Navigation and Ecosystem Sustainability Program (NESP), a dual-purpose authority focusing on both environmental restoration and navigation improvements, the Institute has worked with a broad coalition of organizations to ensure an informed transition from the EMP to the larger authorization under NESP.

As the northern Gulf of Mexico continues to be crippled by hypoxic conditions during the summer, addressing pollutants entering waters from Upper Basin land uses has never been more critical. Although the Upper Mississippi River Basin’s agricultural exports provide important food sources to the country, fertilizer, pesticide, and manure runoff from farm operations degrades water quality, impairing rivers and streams and threatening groundwater supplies. The Institute works with water quality groups from the Mississippi River corridor states as well as other national nonprofits to address this issue on a state and watershed level.