National turtle week took place recently. My natural affinity for “slow and steady wins the race” makes me a big fan of turtles (and tortoises). I’m less of fan of rabbits (and hares), and I guess that’s a result of being a gardener.
While celebrating turtles, I got to thinking about what type of race do we run when we work to leave our world a better place for future generations. Is it a sprint? A marathon? The hurdles?
I heard a luncheon speaker (unfortunately whose name I’ve now forgotten) once likened it to a relay race. As those of you much more into running than I am would know, a relay race runner’s responsibility is to make sure to securely hand the baton to the teammate who will run the next leg. They need to give it their best effort to improve their team’s position as they run their own lap around the track, and then properly connect with the next runner. They have to keep working hard until that baton is safely in the next runner’s hand.
People have lived along the Mississippi River for thousands of years, as the pyramid-sized mounds at Cahokia and the many other archaeological sites up and down the river show. In the past two centuries, we’ve dramatically changed the landscape draining into the river and the flow of the river itself. This transformation has inadvertently caused health and safety problems for people and other concerns for wildlife and nature. Understanding the issues and working together on solutions to create a healthier Mississippi River has taken many years and likely will take many more, nearly as long as it did to create the problems facing the river. So, it’s decidedly not going to be a sprint, and probably not even a marathon that anyone of us can complete alone.
The relay race analogy seems to me like a good fit for the Mississippi River, and let’s throw in a few hurdles too to be honest with ourselves. Like a relay race, it’s going to require a team effort. Some smart, hard-working people before us have gotten us off to a good start, and now have placed that baton of responsibility in our hand. We’re moving forward with all the energy and speed that we can. We’re leaping hurdles as they come. And, we’ll someday hand things off to a future generation for them to continue the journey.
Thanks for grabbing the River Citizen baton. You’re headed in the right direction as part of the 1Mississippi team. Considering the length of Big Muddy, it may take all 17,000 of us working together to make it around our lap of creating a healthier Mississippi River. We’ll let you know over the coming months what you can do to jump some hurdles and help pass along a better world for future generations.
Andy Kimmel
Policy Manager
Mississippi River Network