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From Minnesota’s Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico, the 2300mile-long Mississippi River flows through 10 U.S. states and serves millions of Americans. It is a channel for commercial shipping, a means of recreation, a source of drinking water, and a home to diverse wildlife species. Yet, when it comes to keeping the river free from pollution, the Big Muddy is just an “orphan”, according to a report from a National Research Council committee.
The Mississippi River is plagued by nutrient runoff, toxic chemicals, and sediment problems.
The river suffers from lack of oversight; states regard the Mississippi as a federal responsibility, says committee chair David Dzombak, the Walter J. Blenko, Sr., Professor of Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. And although the U.S. EPA has successfully applied the Clean Water Act (CWA) to reduce levels of point-source pollutants in the river, the agency hasn’t asserted its authority to protect the river from its biggest problems: nutrient runoff, sediments, and other pollutants from nonpoint sources, the committee writes in its report, Mississippi River Water Quality and the Clean Water Act: Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities. Nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizers in agricultural fields wash into the Mississippi and accumulate downstream in the Gulf
of Mexico, creating the hypoxic “dead zone”. Pesticides have made the river water toxic, and other activities—urbanization, dredging for navigation, and building of dams and levees—have redistributed the river’s sediments. The best way to address these pollution problems is to take a new look at the Mississippi and to consider all 2300 miles as one river system. “There needs to be an organization in charge for coordinating that systems view and ensuring that state efforts are coordinated and conducted . . . , and that organization is EPA,” says Dzombak. By developing and enforcing water-quality standards and encouraging interstate and interagency cooperation, the agency can achieve that goal. EPA has already had success with the Chesapeake Bay, the committee writes. Yet, CWA can’t be the “sole legal vehicle” for improving water quality in the Mississippi, the committee writes. For example, CWA can’t protect the river from the effects of urbanization, levee construction, or forestry activities. To deal with some of these problems, EPA officials can tap into programs run by other agencies. For example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s conservation programs—the Conservation Reserve Program, the Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP), and the Conservation Security Program (CSP)—offer incentives to farmers for reducing sediment and nutrient runoff. In a written comment about the report, EPA’s assistant administrator for water, Benjamin Grumbles, said the agency is “committed to increasing efforts with all of our partners to improve the water quality and monitoring of the Mississippi River Basin.” —RHITU CHATTERJEE
Go green, energy experts say
Finding sustainable energy sources is one of the biggest challenges facing the world today, a panel of experts convened by the world’s scientific academies said in a report released in October. The report calls for at least a doubling of clean-energy research budgets and a capand-trade system that sets a price on carbon emissions. Lighting the Way: Toward a Sustainable Energy Future was commissioned by China and Brazil and published by the InterAcademy Council, a network of national academies of science. Rapid building of coal-fired power plants in China and other developing nations may pose the greatest threat to efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the report warns.
First carbon-neutral building
The U.S. Green Building Council certified the world’s first carbon-neutral building in October. “The greenest building ever built,” according to the organization’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design ranking system, houses the Aldo Leopold Foundation. The 12,000 square foot structure produces 15% more energy than it consumes, thanks to its geothermal heating system and the 39.4 kilowatt photovoltaic solar array on its roof. Its heating and ventilation system is built around “earth tubes” that heat or cool air underground before it is sent into the building (see pictures at www.aldoleopold.org). The building also incorporates more conventional energy-saving features, such as maximizing insulation and capturing daylight and natural breezes.
December 15, 2007 / Environmental Science & Technology n 8207
The Kubal a Washatko Architects / Mark Heffron
The Mississippi: an “orphan” river
