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Four conservation and agriculture groups
said Monday they'll launch a new three-year partnership to study
reducing agricultural runoff into the Mississippi River.


      The Nature Conservancy will study four upper Mississippi
watersheds, including the Root River in Minnesota, the Pecatonica
River in Wisconsin, the Boone River in Iowa and the Mackinaw River
in Illinois. The group also will work with farmers to reduce
agricultural runoff.


      The Iowa Soybean Association will conduct research on the Boone
and Raccoon rivers. Delta Wildlife will work to reduce runoff on
about 1,000 farms in the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta region, which
includes 4 million acres in northwestern Mississippi. The National
Audubon Society will encourage people throughout the Mississippi
watershed to improve water quality and habitat for birds and other
wildlife.


      St. Louis agricultural company Monsanto will back the project
with $5 million. About $3 million will go to the Nature
Conservancy. Another $1.5 million will go to Delta Wildlife.


      The studies could help reduce nutrients that contribute to a
8,000 square-mile dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, the groups said.


      The zone is largely caused by agricultural fertilizer running
off fields, into the Mississippi River and then into the Gulf.
Nitrogen and phosphorus in the runoff has reduced oxygen in the
zone to a level too low to support marine life.


      Delta Wildlife aims to reduce runoff including phosphorus by 62
percent. The group said it doesn't have a hard goal on nitrogen
reduction because the science there is still developing.


      The other groups haven't set pollution reduction goals, saying
they're dealing with a broad landscape up and down the Mississippi.
Different regions require different techniques, and much depends on
farmer participation, they said.


      Roger Still, vice president of the National Audubon Society's
Mississippi River Initiative, said the studies' main objective is
to gather data about effective techniques and then use them.

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Environmental News

Conservation and agriculture groups said
Monday they'll launch a new partnership to study reducing agricultural runoff into the Mississippi River.

Environmental groups launch studies of Mississippi River

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