More than 100 mayors along the Mississippi River have formed a coalition to advocate for increased funding for disaster preparedness, ecosystem restoration, and natural infrastructure. On March 1, the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative (MRCTI), at its annual meeting in Washington, D.C., released its policy platform.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act was praised by the mayors (IRA). The mayors of Greenville, Mississippi, and Memphis, Tennessee, respectively, and co-chairs of the MRCTI, Errick Simmons and Jim Strickland, claimed that the two investment packages bring “the most resources to the Mississippi River Corridor since the New Deal.”
More than $21 billion of the IRA is allocated for agriculture that is climate-friendly, which could lessen harmful runoff into the river. The $17 billion in ports and waterways invested by the infrastructure law.
Strickland and Simmons said in a statement that the historic federal investments could fund watershed-scale projects to completion. Brad Cavanagh, the mayor of Dubuque, Iowa, said new spending must also be paired with smart policy.
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MRCTI reports that nearly $1 trillion of product travels on the Mississippi River annually, accounting for more than 90% of U.S. agricultural exports, generating half a trillion dollars in revenue and employing an estimated 1.3 million people.
“Our corridor is a national treasure of environmental services vital to our nation’s economic security and critical to commodity production, manufacturing, and transportation,” Strickland and Simmons said in their statement.
The mayors are seeking additional funding for eight pieces of legislation and calling for more than $280 million in appropriations for 10 projects, which MRCTI executive director Colin Wellenkamp said demonstrate a basin-scale approach to conservation.
One pillar of the programs is the protection of the basin’s natural infrastructure, such as wetlands, which combat severe weather events driven by climate change.
Wetlands provide myriad benefits to communities near the river, including water quality improvement, pollution control, flood protection, and recreation. The upper Mississippi River has lost more than 80% of wetlands since the end of the 18th century, making the region more vulnerable to natural disasters.
Story adapted from WWNO
