Making Mississippi River Sausage

Participants in the Visions of a Sustainable Mississippi River got a taste of sausage making on the second day of the conference when the focus turned to policy recommendations for the future of the River. While it wasn’t pretty, as with sausage making, the outcome offers public policy approaches to managing the Mississippi River as a whole — environmentally, economically and culturally.

Today, the conference turns its attention to those policy recommendations. A panel that includes representatives from congress, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency will hear the collective suggestions of the panels and participants here at the conference. I don’t expect it will be as exciting as the town hall forums on health care, but there is reason to hope the proposals from the panels on the Economic Value of the Mississipppi River, Flood Management, Ethanol Prodution and Water Quality will feed into a growing momentum for wholistic approaches to the River in the future.