The Mississippi River. It’s one of the world’s largest. It’s been a focal point for culture and commerce for millennia. And for 250 years, it has driven American expansion and economy. It connects the heart of a continent to the world. And yet, for law, policy, and management, it is an afterthought. Simple questions, like “who’s in charge of the Mississippi River?” don’t have simple answers. Instead, we have complex (and often insufficient) laws, policies, and authorities on certain parts of the River or regarding certain aspects of its use or management. This project is intended to be a resource for all those who depend on the river, who care for its communities and ecosystems, and who wish to better understand how decisions about the river are made and even wish to improve the possibilities for that decision making.
That decision making happens at federal, state, and local levels. On the map below, you can access compiled distillations of the ten mainstem states’ structures, laws, and policies for managing their part of the Mississippi River. For a quick overview of the legal farmeworks across these ten states, check out this Mississippi River Corridor States’ Water Management Summary!
Just click on a Mississippi River Corridor state to find out all about its water management framework!
Additionally, several aspects of our federal government play various roles in aspects of the River’s management. From beans to boats, from floods to fuels, all of these federal concepts, laws, and programs carry out a whole host of different (and sometimes differing) priorities on the Mississippi. Below are analyses of several of these, explained in the context of the Mississippi River.
Federal Overviews:
Federal Water Quality Overview
Federal Environmental Review and Conservation
Federal Water Monitoring Programs
Federal Agency Programs:
United States Army Corps of Engineers on the Mississippi River
Department of Agriculture Water Programs
Federal Judicial Concepts:
Judicial Apportionment Among Mississippi River States
Federal Reserved Rights in Mississippi River States
Interstate Water Compacts for Mississippi River States
Stay tuned! There’s more to come!