Because you live in a Mississippi River state, you have a responsibility to help protect this national treasure. Urge your member of Congress to protect the conservation programs in the 2011 and 2012 budgets. Contact your Senators today.

Here’s how:

  1. E-mail Iowa Senators Harkin and Grassley; click on this link to send an email to Senator Grassley: http://grassley.senate.gov/contact.cfm. Click on this link to send an email to Senator Harkin:http://harkin.senate.gov/contact_opinion.cfm
  2. Urge Senators Harkin and Grassley to protect funding for conservation programs. Copy and paste this letter into the body of your message (feel free to edit it and add your own words!):

Dear Senators Harkin and Grassley,

The Mississippi River is a source of life for each of the ten states it touches. It is a source of jobs and ensures our quality of life. But agricultural pollution is wrecking our Big River and creating the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico, an area in which no fish, shrimp, or wildlife can survive. This pollution threatens our drinking water and our economies.

Now is the time for budget cuts, but they can’t be haphazard. Consider the vital importance of agricultural conservation programs that have been developed by our government in protecting the environment and in providing critical wildlife habitat throughout the Mississippi River Basin and the Gulf of Mexico. We need programs like the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and theEnvironmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) and the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP).

In Iowa:

  • 797,605 acres are being treated in the FY2010 Conservation Stewardship Program.
  • 87,815 acres have been enrolled in the Wetlands Reserve Program since its inception.
  • 53,310 farms have been enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program through FY 2010.

Let’s be fiscally responsible, but let’s be realistic about it. These proposed cuts would greatly inhibit the potency of agricultural programs that are not only efficient in their ability to deliver cost-effective environmental benefits, but are also necessary to offset the increasing stress being placed on the land to produce food, fiber and fuel for the nation. These agricultural conservation programs are vital to the protection and management of agricultural and environmental resources in the Mississippi River Basin. Please protect them today.

Sincerely,

YOUR NAME
YOUR CITY