Mississippi River Basin: Ag & Water Desk
The Ag & Water Desk team is made up of ten partner news organizations: Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, Madison, WI; the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting, Champaign, IL; The Courier-Journal, Louisville, KY; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee, WI; The Daily Memphian, Memphis, TN; Northern Public Radio – WNIJ, DeKalb, IL; Harvest Public Media, Kansas City, MO; Star Tribune, Minneapolis, MN; The Gazette, Cedar Rapids, IA; and The Lens in New Orleans, LA. Each news outlet applied to be part of the project through Report for America. Each outlet has hired one reporter to participate as a member of the Ag & Water Desk.
Additionally, the desk has five expert journalists and two senior advisors based at the following outlets: Inside Climate News, Washington, D.C.; The St. Louis Post Dispatch, St. Louis; DTN/The Progressive Farmer; the Indianapolis Star, Indianapolis; WWNO, New Orleans Public Radio, New Orleans and The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate | NOLA.com, New Orleans.
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El Río Mississippi fluye apaciblemente debajo del Puente Centennial, que conecta Illinois e Iowa por las Quad Cities. Un sábado por la tarde a principios de mayo, los carros pasan y saludan o dan un bocinazo ocasional a una larga fila de ambientalistas que afirman que el río es un ser vivo. -
Advocates from across the Mississippi River basin are calling for the Mississippi River to be granted legal rights.
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A new study of the dramatic loss of wetlands in the Barataria Basin south of New Orleans during the last 130 years concludes that the two main causes have been construction of levees along the Mississippi River and subsidence due to oil and gas activity.
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Illinois Attorney General's Office filed new lawsuit alleging 14 companies knowingly enriched themselves while promoting toxic PFAS products.
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The Environmental Protection Agency recently released new rules regarding the Waters of the United States that decide which bodies of water fall under federal protection. But a case the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on soon throws those rules into question and could mean less protection for wetlands.
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Many ag industry and farm worker advocacy groups had high hopes that farm labor reform would make it through Congress last year. Now the future is murky.
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The Census of Agriculture produces the clearest snapshot of agriculture in the U.S. as it exists. The USDA will begin mailing questionnaires to all known agricultural producers this month.
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Bobcat hunting and trapping is commonplace throughout much of the United States, with the exception of a handful of holdout states. Despite the abundance of the wildcat nationwide, some conservationists are pushing back on the open season.
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The situation has left local officials in a dilemma: they want to reassure people about their drinking water, even as they face unanswered questions about health risks and who will pay to clean up the contamination.
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An Indigenous-led effort is returning buffalo to tribal lands across the Midwest. Some of the animals come from The Nature Conservancy’s buffalo herds.
