ROCK ISLAND, Ill. — The Mississippi River is the natural resource of water that runs south into the Gulf of Mexico. It runs through various locations in the US, including in the Quad Cities, but living near the river comes with challenges such as flooding and droughts.
To tackle these challenges, River Action hosted its annual Upper Mississippi River Conference. The conference gives an opportunity for collaboration with experts, policymakers, and cities to focus on clean water challenges and partnerships that lead to change.
"Mayors along the entire length of the of the Mississippi River have partnered with Ducks Unlimited to establish the largest non-federal pipeline of natural infrastructure projects on the Mississippi River," Colin Wellenkamp, executive director of Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative, said. "These pipeline of projects are designed to reduce the area's risk to intense heat, flooding, drought and other major storm events."
Wellenkamp added the projects, "allow nature to work with our cities, and use the capacities of natural systems to create lots of benefits, not just disaster resilience, and climate mitigation, but also to secure our freshwater access and supply for drinking water and for freshwater intensive manufacturing."
Ray Wolf, one of the conference organizers, says it's important to have the river in mind when developing around it.
"These Ducks Unlimited projects are awesome," Wolf said. "The ecological restorations that has multi-benefit. It doesn't just aim at solving one problem. It actually helps with another — influencing and reduces flood risk to a degree that provides greater recreational opportunities. I think it's these kinds of multi-benefit projects that allow us to get the biggest bang for our buck."
Ducks Unlimited is currently designing several projects near Rock River and the Mississippi River confluence. There's a Scott County conservation project with the hope that it will benefit the Port Byron region and all the way down to Muscatine.
They hope to have the majority of the projects in development by 2030 with some of them completed in several states, including Illinois and Iowa.
The Upper Mississippi River Conference continues on Thursday, Oct. 18 at the Holiday Inn located in Rock Island.
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