Conversations about the Mississippi River inevitably bring up the valuable functions of wetlands. Whether the topic is preserving wildlife diversity, reducing nutrient pollution, or preparing for ever-increasing extreme weather, wetlands never fail to be part of the solution, or even a “magic bullet.”
As a historian and non-scientist by nature, my perspective naturally starts with looking at where we were in our development as a society when we first began to alter wetlands. In man’s epic struggle against nature, wetlands were drained to create “useable” land; land that could be built on, farmed and made “productive.” We thought we were doing Mother Nature and society a favor—eliminating areas where the notorious mosquito would breed and then kill entire towns by spreading yellow fever. We made the best decisions we could at the time, but times have changed as has our definition of “productive.”
Productivity is no longer solely based on how many bushels of wheat or corn an acre of land can produce. Now, a wetland’s ability to absorb floodwater is one of the most important hydrological functions we humans need from our landscape. One of the shining examples in the Mississippi River Basin, or in the world for that matter, is The Nature Conservancy’s Emiquon Project. The success of this restoration is due to multiple partners working together and the implementation of the Wetlands Reserve Program, administered by the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. During a presentation on the Emiquon Preserve, Doug Blodgett, The Nature Conservancy’s Illinois’ Director of River Conservation, highlighted the preserves ability to reduce the severity of floods, stormwater runoff and water pollution. With a twinkle, Doug also sprinkled in a bit of his obvious reverence for wetlands, noting that some of the plant species to flourish in the restored area sprouted from seed that lay dormant for nearly 80 years. 80 years!
Those seeds were there before World War II, before microwaves, even before The Wizard of Oz blew us away with Technicolor.
Amazed, I couldn’t resist doing a bit of research. What I found out next stunned me in awe of the power of plants; according to the American Journal of Botany, “A 1300-yr-old lotus fruit, recovered from an originally cultivated but now dry lakebed in northeastern China, is the oldest germinated and directly carbon-dated fruit known.” That is a fact sure to swirl around in my brain for a long time. While I struggle to put that into context, all I can say is I think that lotus beat out Jack and his beanstalk.
Lotus Flower
During the same time as those seeds at Emiquon went dormant, a massive dust bowl raged in the nation’s Great Plains. As civilization grew and more stress was put on agriculture, farmers began to plow land that was traditionally too wet to farm and tear up prairie grass root systems that held the land in place on a massive scale. The ever-increasing reliance on fertilizer began as well, beginning a legacy that continues today and is strikingly clear today in the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone as well as in other estuaries and lakes with toxic algae blooms. As many farmers are looking to reduce soil erosion and the amount of fertilizer or excess nutrients running off the land into local waterways, it is wetlands to the rescue.
Map of the 2014 Dead Zone, an area roughly the size of the state of Connecticut, which lacks oxygen in the water and therefore cannot sustain life.
A replicable case study was conducted in the Big Bureau Creek Watershed in north-central Illinois where The Wetlands Initiative (TWI) set out to demonstrate that constructed wetlands are a feasible and very successful nutrient removal practice. Their research shows wetlands are highly effective at removing excess fertilizer or nutrients like nitrogen when carefully designed and strategically positioned within the agricultural landscape. Small “in-line” wetlands located in or adjacent to ditches or small tributaries remove nitrogen from tile-drainage flows before they enter a major stream, without taking large amounts of prime farmland out of production. It is important for professionals who work in the agriculture industry to find an effective flat hose that will allow them to drain any unwanted fluids and liquids away from their site so that their land can remain in perfect condition. As well as being used in the agriculture industry, flat hoses may also be found in horticulture drainage projects.
A continuous simulation watershed model and GIS spatial analyses were used to identify high nutrient contributing areas, identify potential wetland sites and estimate the effectiveness of the sites in capturing and treating surface and tile drainage nutrient runoff in a 125,000 hectare (ha) heavily agricultural watershed, representative of most Midwestern states. The 80 modeled wetland complexes, comprising 351 ha, have a wide range of effectiveness in reducing nutrients from tile-drainage, but the annual average nitrogen and phosphorus loads would be reduced by 14% and 11%, respectively. TWI’s current focus is to help interested farmers implement constructed wetlands and leverage the financial assistance programs available through the federal Farm Bill. Agriculture and clean water are both critical to our nation’s economy, and the farmers that embrace this new science are proving both can exist simultaneously.
While the “man versus nature” battle may have been won in other areas of society, it is in our best interests to call it a draw and learn to live with the wild Mississippi River, with all of its personalities and its constant need to move and change.
Dedicated wetlands and floodplains along the Mississippi River and its tributaries are the only realistic way to allow the river to naturally expand and contract, reduce the effects of extreme weather and provide essential habitat for wildlife.
From farmers to mayors, River Citizens are on the front lines, defending local wetlands and helping communities understand why wetlands are so important to public safety, water quality and the health of the river. The Mississippi River and it’s wetlands are a national treasure and deserve to be protected.
We can prove some of the magical nutrient reducing powers of wetlands through scientific inquiry, but some of the magic cannot be proven, instead it is felt.
By Annette Anderson, 1 Mississippi Campaign Manager
(This blog post was originally written for and published by the National Wetlands Newsletter)