Delaney Dryfoos and Elise Plunk Ag & Water Desk Sep 25, 2024
BATON ROUGE – Mayors from 10 states along the Mississippi River recently convened in Louisiana’s capital to announce a cooperative agreement between the working river’s ports. The mayors also called upon the next U.S. President to prioritize several federal-policy changes to support the 105 cities represented by the initiative.
Mayors from the Midwestern corn belt joined mayors from Louisiana to sign the Mississippi River Ports Cooperative Endeavor Agreement. The agreement is the first to ensure cooperation between the inland ports in the heart of the corn belt and the coastal ports of Louisiana, which export 60 percent of the nation’s agricultural products.
The inland ports from St. Louis to St. Paul were not federally recognized until 2022, said Robert Sinkler, executive coordinating director of Corn Belt Ports. With the support of the Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative, the Corn Belt Ports initiative was launched in 2019 to advocate for federal recognition of those ports. Corn-belt and coastal ports will now take commerce-related policy actions together for the first time in Mississippi River history. The river moves almost 1 trillion dollars in product through its ports annually. Maintaining navigation capability on the river is a key part of the agreement.
Low water levels on the Mississippi River again threaten to disrupt barge transports carrying fuel and grain. The 16-month drought spanning from 2022 to 2023 cost the nation $26 billion. The drought of 2012 cost the Mississippi River corridor $35 billion.
Belinda Constant, mayor of Gretna, Louisiana, said droughts often cost more than floods, but don’t qualify as “major disasters” worthy of relief from the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“We still are not able to capture federal-disaster declarations for drought or intense heat,” she said.
FEMA is not organized to provide relief for intense droughts or extreme heat, which are expected to become more extreme, according to the Fifth National Climate Assessment. The federal government does offer support through other agencies, such as farm losses through the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
But though drought is not considered a “major disaster” by FEMA, the president can declare one. President Joe Biden declared a federal emergency this past September in Louisiana when the effects of drought caused salt water to intrude up the Mississippi River and threaten drinking water.
Constant is asking the next U.S. President to update FEMA regulations to include droughts and extreme heat. Earlier this summer dozens of labor and environmental groups filed a petition to push FEMA to declare extreme heat and wildfire smoke as “major disasters,” on par with other natural disasters such as floods and tornadoes. She said the next administration should also create a mechanism to incentivize or compensate manufacturers and farmers who recycle water or reduce water usage during dry periods.
Louisiana is again dealing with drought. As of Sept. 13 the saltwater wedge intruding from the ocean had reached river mile 45, corroding drinking water infrastructure south of Port Sulphur and inching toward Pointe a la Hache, Louisiana. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has begun construction on an underwater sill near Myrtle Grove, Louisiana, to help slow the creep of saltwater intrusion for the third summer in a row.
People are also reading…
But the drought impacts all communities along the Mississippi River, not just those in southern Louisiana. There are 50 cities with a total population of 20 million people who depend on the Mississippi River for drinking water.
The 105 cities represented called on the next U.S. President to advocate for the corridor both at home and internationally.
“We are asking the next president to please work with us to enact a federal Mississippi River program through which we can deploy infrastructure spending at a multi-state scale,” said Hollies J. Winston, mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota.
The Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative has advocated for the Mississippi River corridor at five United Nations climate meetings. Bob Gallagher, mayor of Bettendorf, Iowa, called on the next U.S. president to ensure that the nation remains a part of the Paris Agreement to sustain the Mississippi River corridor’s $500 billion in revenue.
“Serving as a past co-chair of (the Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative) along with being from an agricultural state, I know firsthand that U.S. participation in the Paris Accord helps us compete, and move our commodities and goods across the world to other markets,” he said.
Pulling out of the Paris Agreement could trigger tariffs for goods coming from a non-signatory nation. Leaving the international climate accord would place farmers and manufacturers at a potential disadvantage in the global market, he said.
President Donald Trump announced in 2017 that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord. In 2021, on President Joe Biden’s first day in office, the United States rejoined the international agreement to limit temperature increases.
“We can’t afford to make any policy decisions that will jeopardize the $164 billion in agricultural commodities the Mississippi River makes possible every year,” Gallagher said.
Mitch Reynolds, mayor of La Crosse, Wisconsin, and Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative co-chair, said the advocacy work of the initiative is paramount to defending the health of the river and its communities.
The Mississippi River Ports Cooperative Endeavor Agreement unites the communities along the corridor in a shared commitment to protect, restore and manage the river’s resources and sustainably, said Sharon Weston Broome, mayor of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and host of the initiative’s 13th annual meeting.
“We urge the next administration to increase its focus on the river, its impact on the national economy and its continued need for stewardship,” she said.
Delaney Dryfoos is with The Lens; Elise Plunk is with the Louisiana Illuminator This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation. The Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative is also a Walton grantee.