The Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) is an important piece of legislation that directs the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ work on everything from flooding to habitat restoration. The House of Representatives is working on specific WRDA language today and tomorrow – make your voice heard now to support restoration, nature-based solutions to flooding, science, and monitoring!

The Upper Mississippi River Restoration Program was the first environmental restoration and monitoring program undertaken on a large river system in the United States; authorized by the WRDA of 1986. The Upper Mississippi River Restoration

Program has improved critical fish and wildlife habitat on 102,000 acres through 55 projects. The Program has also pioneered many new and innovative engineering and planning techniques for ecosystem restoration in large river systems. The science program of the Upper Mississippi River Restoration Program has developed state-of-the-art techniques to monitor and conduct research on the river. Scientific monitoring, engineering design, and environmental modeling techniques have been shared throughout the United States and in more than five countries.

But since it was founded, the Program has never benefited from a funding increase, which has reduced spending power by 53.5% since its current authorized appropriation cap was set. Luckily, the House is considering an increase in available funding for ecosystem restoration on the Upper Mississippi River. But they won’t make any new funds available for the science and monitoring part of the program. Tell your Representative now: It is time to fund big river science!