The Mississippi Valley Traveler Podcast
The Mississippi Valley Traveler Podcast
From Great Sewer to Great River: How the Twin Cities Brought a Dead Mississippi River Back to Life
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A hundred years ago, the Mississippi River that ran through Minneapolis and Saint Paul was basically a dead river. Factories, people, and local governments dumped sewage and industrial waste into the river until it was a slimy, fetid mess incapable of supporting life. But by the 1930s, attitudes started to shift and the first steps were taken to reduce the flow of pollution into the river. In this episode, Abby Moore and Cassie Champion, two of the people involved with a campaign called Sacred Water, Shared Future, describe how the Great River became the Great Sewer, then how local folks gradually cleaned it up and restored the river’s ability to support life and its status as something worthy of admiration.
They describe the goals behind Sacred Water, Shared Future and who is involved, then we talk about the importance of sharing success stories, especially the ones that unfold across time. They share a few thoughts about how we can continue to build and maintain support for clean water initiatives and what other cities might be able to learn from the success of the Twin Cities. This is a fundamentally a good-news story, one that shows that regardless of how bad something might seem, a better future isn’t just a hope but something that can be achieved, even if it takes a while.
Dean, that study essentially confirmed what people already suspected, which is at the time the Mississippi River was essentially a dead ecosystem. There's some really vivid descriptive material both before and after the study. Some of the study results are that the dissolved oxygen was essentially consumed, completely unavailable, not a high enough concentration to support fish life, and in the study zone from about Saint Paul to Red Wing, Minnesota, which is about 42 miles of river, they only collected three fish.
Dean Klinkenberg:Welcome to the Mississippi Valley Traveler Podcast. I'm Dean Klinkenberg, and I've been exploring the deep history and rich culture of the people and places along America's greatest river, the Mississippi, since 2007. Join me as I go deep into the characters and places along the river, and occasionally wander into other stories from the Midwest and other rivers. Read the episode show notes and get more information on the Mississippi at MississippiValleyTraveler.com. Let's get going. Welcome to episode 80 of the Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast. Sometimes it's easy to overlook the good, especially when it happens over a long a long time span, such as decades or a couple of generations. I think that's the case with the the state of the Mississippi River in the Twin Cities especially. A hundred years ago, the Mississippi that ran through Minneapolis and St. Paul was essentially a dead river, filled with sewage and detritus, fetid and unable to support life at all. When you look at that same river today, it's hard to imagine just how far gone the river was in the 1920s. Over time, though, folks in the Twin Cities took a series of steps to clean up the river and bring it back to life. And in this episode, I talk with Abby Moore and Cassie Champion, two of the people involved with Sacred Water Shared Future, a campaign created to mark the 100-year anniversary of the river's low point and to spread the good news about the successive efforts to restore the Mississippi River's health. So we talk about just how bad the river's world had become by the 1920s and what nearly killed it. Abby and Cassie describe the the gradual process undertaken by local folks to dramatically slow the flow of contaminants into the river and to clean up the mess it had become. We then get into talking a little bit about the goals behind Sacred Water Shared Future, who's involved, and the importance of sharing success stories, especially the ones that unfold across time. We end our conversation by discussing ways we can continue to build and maintain support for clean water initiatives, and what other cities might be able to learn from the success of the Twin Cities. This is fundamentally a feel-good story, a lesson that hope is never entirely lost of what we can ultimately succeed at when we just make up our minds to do so. So stick around and listen to the interview, and feel free to share your comments on what you think about the messages in this particular conversation. Thanks to all of you who continue to show me support through Patreon. For as little as $1 a month, you can join this Patreon community where you get early access to every episode. To join the Patreon community, go to patreon.com/deanklinkenberg. If Patreon's not your thing, hey, buy me a coffee. I drink plenty of coffee, and I can use all the help I can get supporting that caffeine habit. If you want to know how to buy me a coffee, you can go to MississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast, and you'll find instructions there how to do so. And at that same place at MississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast, you'll find a list of all 79 previous episodes. Just click on any one of those episodes, such as the the link for this episode, to find the show notes and and see some pictures associated with each of those episodes. All right, let's get on with the interview. Well, I think today is the first time I've been lucky enough to have two guests on the podcast at the same time. So I'd like to welcome Abby Moore and and Cassie Champion. Abby Moore is the Outreach Program Manager at the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization. She provides program leadership, guides strategic initiatives, and oversees outreach and engagement efforts for the organization. Abby is particularly interested in developing programs that connect people with the Mississippi River and foster sustainable behavior across the watershed. She's a former high school science teacher and has worked as an environmental educator and program leader at various science and environmental organizations across the country. Cassandra Champion is the Principal Environmental Scientist for Met Council Environmental Services, coordinating the stream and tributary monitoring program. Since 2021, she has facilitated a group of regional partners to plan and launch the Sacred Water Shared Future campaign. Abby and Cassie, welcome to the podcast.
Abby and Cassie:Thank you so much for having us.
Dean Klinkenberg:It seemed like the logical place to start for the our discussion was to kind of look back in time. It seems like the the 100th anniversary of a milestone study seems to be a motivating factor in forming this organization as well. So take us back to this 1926 study that had a little bit to say about the quality of the river at that time. What did that study reveal about the Mississippi River and the Twin Cities?
Cassie Champion:Sure. Dean, That study essentially confirmed what people already suspected, which is at the time the Mississippi River was essentially a dead ecosystem. There's some really vivid descriptive material both before and after the study. Some of the study results are that the dissolved oxygen was essentially consumed, completely unavailable, not a high enough concentration to support fish life, and in the study zone from about Saint Paul to Red Wing, Minnesota, which is about 42 miles of river, they only collected three fish, and I don't mean kinds, I mean three actual fish, and the one of them was a short-nosed gar in Spring Lake, which is pretty close to Hastings, Minnesota. That's Pool Two. That fish was described as very sluggish. So the the study results were really just dismal and reflecting what the conditions, as they were already understood by people living near the river.
Dean Klinkenberg:What were the sources of pollution at that
Cassie Champion:Yeah, I think that's kind of a an interesting story. So I'm going to back us up in time a little bit, just to time? Where were? Why was the river in such bad shape? point out that people have lived along the Mississippi River in this area of the Mississippi River for 1000s of years, and always been dependent on the river. And what what really started to change was after about 1860, the population just grew and grew and grew and grew in a way that was ecologically unprecedented in the life of the river, and all of these people living really, really close together, doing what people always do. Get it? Did I mention that I work for the wastewater utility of the Twin Cities? Just in case I didn't make that clear, I do. That. That that increase in population and the the fundamentally untreated, unmanaged sewage was the biggest initial factor. So, if I can, I would like to read just a short excerpt of of an editorial from the Minneapolis Tribune from 1877. So people were really understanding the the the desperate public health situation that was caused just by this many people simply living together as humans with normal bodily functions. So, so again, this is from 1877, the Minneapolis Tribune. "It is a well-settled fact among scientists that all other provisions for the health and comfort of a city are subordinate to the one vital desideratum of adequate sewerage." And I like how they use a little Latin to get their point across that the sewer, a network of sewers to collect this human sewage, is the most critical necessity for a city to be healthy, and it was. And by 1900, there were 120 miles of sewer in the Twin Cities carrying waste from homes and businesses directly into the Mississippi River, so that's kind of step one and two is population growth and the development of the sewer network.
Dean Klinkenberg:And I think at the time the the attitude probably toward the the sewage was the the solution to pollution is dilution. Wasn't that the prevailing mindset?
Cassie Champion:Yep, and the the river, of course, that. This point, 1900 was still completely wild and free, and a big, reliable annual spring flood could be counted on to mostly wash the pollution away downstream. So there's there's the not just dilution as the solution to pollution, but always live upstream.
Dean Klinkenberg:Unfortunately, not all of us get to live upstream, right?
Cassie Champion:Right.
Dean Klinkenberg:I'm in St. Louis, and I'm downstream of Chicago's waste. So we have our own issues. What the the the fact that so much sewage and pollution got dumped into the Mississippi at that time and for a generation at least. What what does that tell us about people's attitudes toward rivers during that time period?
Cassie Champion:I think rivers really were considered. There's no other word than sewer. Part of the function of having a river in your city was that it would remove the waste from your city, and that was sort of understood for a long time. And I'm I'm not a legal historian, so I'm not going to try to explain how that changed. But here in the Twin Cities, the the next biggest change, besides the development of the sewer network, was kind of the build out of of our our river commerce network, primarily the lock and dam system. So that the the first Lock and Dam No. 1, the first one on the Mississippi River was built in Saint Paul. We call it the Ford Dam up here, and that was completed in 1917. And so there's the first moment where our wild and free river now has become a still stepped pool. That's what the lock and dams have done. They've chained the wild and free flowing river to still stepped pools, holding the water in place, but then also holding the sewage in place. So that's really kind of the final tipping point towards the real ecological devastation in the Twin Cities region. And if it's if it's okay, I want to read one more quote from a travel memoir from 1933. You might be familiar with Clarence Jonk. He built his own homemade houseboat and launched it in Minneapolis and intended to navigate to New Orleans, of course, in 1933. But made it actually to Winona, which is not very far. That's still in Minnesota. But I just want to read you this description he left of his launch point in Minneapolis. So again, October of 1933. "The houseboat has been lowered into the sewage-laden water, where fish die, float, and turn idly about in the eddies, showing their worm-infested bodies like a curse to the men who infected their world. Continuously, their white mouths nudged the manure of humanity, the offwash of the streets and gutters, and here, curling under our starboard side, a brown foam, bubbles and steams. Such as our baptism into the great river."
Dean Klinkenberg:That's a ringing endorsement of water quality in that time. I'm surprised he felt comfortable getting in a boat anywhere near that that that water at that time. You know, I'd be a little nervous about it.
Cassie Champion:Yeah, he describes them as pushing as fast as they could for cleaner waters.
Dean Klinkenberg:So, tell me a little bit more about what really began to bend the curve then on water quality in the Mississippi. I think the lock, as I understand it, the locks and dams were part of the impetus for that because it, as you said, it trapped all this sewage behind it, and it made this made the pollution that much more obvious and unbearable. I heard some really horrific stories from South St. Paul, across from the stockyards, and the quality of the water there, especially after the dam was built downstream. So, so tell us a little bit about sort of the arc of how people began to recognize this is not really a good idea, and the step, the initial steps people took to clean it up.
Cassie Champion:Yeah, so this is really kind of leading to 1933 when Minnesota formed the Minneapolis Saint Paul sewerage district, and the point was to collect the sewage and move it as far downstream as possible, where it can be treated and where the plant effluent can be disinfected, and so that's the the earliest description of the plans for Metropolitan Water Resource Recovery Facility, which that's where I work. It's the oldest and largest wastewater treatment plant on the Mississippi River. It came online with primary treatment only in 1938, and the descriptions of the river is that the floating sludge mats cleared up within four months of plant beginning operation.
Dean Klinkenberg:A good band name, floating sludge mats. You know.
Cassie Champion:Good idea.
Dean Klinkenberg:Wow! Within four months, so really, it was, it didn't take that much to begin to really clean things up.
Cassie Champion:Yeah, really, giving the river space to clean itself up. A wastewater treatment plant is is essentially accelerating natural processes that would be happening anyway, just at a much bigger scale and a much faster scale, in a way that the river can tolerate.
Dean Klinkenberg:There have been probably a lot of fairly incremental steps since then. Maybe the biggest force change was the Clean Water Act that really improved water quality in rivers and lakes across the country. Kind of like take us now to the present. Like, how's the river in the Twin Cities doing today?
Abby Moore:I don't have data to share, so Cassie, chime in if you'd like. But I know it's doing well compared to how it was 100 years ago, for sure. Like the water quality has improved pretty significantly. The a lot of the ecosystems that were destroyed are sort of back and functional. We've got terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems that are dependent on the river, that are healthy and thriving, and there's a huge amount of effort by lots of overlapping jurisdictions, particularly in the Twin Cities metro area, to continue to protect and improve water quality and habitat, and you know, generally like recognize the importance of all the things that we get from living next to the river. I mean, the river is the lifeblood of the Twin Cities, and we are here because of it. And you know the generally the feelings of a lot of residents towards the river have really changed over time. I think your question earlier about how does the fact that it got so polluted reflect people's feelings about the river and sort of how it exists and why it's there, and it was really different 100 years ago for lots of reasons. I mean, the population in the in Minneapolis itself grew really, really fast around the development of the mills, and so suddenly there's all sorts of people setting up shop and using the river for lots of things, looking at a looking at it as a resource to be used, and not thinking as much about the fact that you have to also care for something that's sustaining your livelihood and your life. So I think that that attitude has shifted quite a bit.
Dean Klinkenberg:It's been a long time since there's been a floating sludge mat. So every time I go up to the Twin Cities, I am envious of the amount of public space along the river and throughout. You know, basically from the suburbs in the northwest all the way down to the suburbs in the southeast, the the amount of the ease with which people can get next to the river makes me jealous because in St. Louis, it's much harder lift to get anywhere close to the river, especially in the city. So it seems like that's part of what probably plays in your favor when it comes to really pushing for water, you know, protecting water quality. Now, is there's really high public engagement with the Mississippi now? Apparently, you can even rent a hot tub now and float down the river.
Cassie Champion:Very excited to try that. I haven't done it yet, but I can't wait.
Dean Klinkenberg:So, what is where where is the the gap then, or the need that Sacred Water Shared Future is trying to address within this this this world where things, from an outsider's perspective, look like they're going pretty well, especially compared to other cities.
Cassie Champion:Yeah, I like that question a lot because what the story that we just shared with you about the the pollution and cleanup of the river is really not well known in the Twin Cities to residents. If if Abby or I are out doing some kind of engagement work and ask the question, is the Mississippi River cleaner now than it was 100 years ago? The answer, almost across the board is the river is dirtier now than it's ever been, and it's just getting dirtier. So this this really dire, you know, ecological destruction. The the story of it is just completely lost. Like they did such a good job solving the problem that regionally we forgot there ever was a problem, and that they ever solved it. So that's part of what Sacred Water
Shared Future is about:is about sharing this story, but not just only for the sake of knowing a little tidbit of our really important regional history, but also as an inspiration, because the Mississippi River still needs enormous amounts of public investment and protection. And has is facing really complicated existential problems, and then this story can be an inspiration of look how complicated that problem was. Look what they had to do to solve it. They did that, and we can use that as a model and an inspiration to going forward to address the problems that we're facing in the present time.
Abby Moore:Yeah, I would. One of the things, just to kind of add on to that, I think about with environmental degradation in general. It feels very often all doom and gloom, and there's a lot of big problems, and it is a lot. There's a lot of scary stuff going on to as far as environmental degradation, but it's important to illustrate for people how the ways that regular people participate in efforts that lead to change, and because I think because we hear a lot of the doom and gloom and it feels really really big, it's easy to just be like, there's nothing I can do. Like I and and along with that, I think particularly with yes, the institution of the wastewater treatment plant and then the Clean Water Act, demonstrating how policy does lead to change because I think you know there's often such an 100 years is more than most lifespans, but it's still attitude about regulatory things, like impeding on people's livelihoods and so on. But the result that we get from in from implementing those regulations is benefits us all. And I think really being able to point to the specifics of how federal policy and state and regional policy have brought us here to this place of having a much cleaner river is helpful to understand how those big kind of sweeping bits of legislation actually really make a difference, and that that's also how we can make these kind of really big shifts. something you can think about, and I think all the time about like my family. I come from a long line of St. Paul residents. My my mom and my grandma and her parents all grew up in St. Paul, and so they were around for all of this, and that feels manageable to me to sort of think about, and so recognizing the amount of improvement that we've experienced in that short time is, as Cassie said, inspiring and is motivating to continue the effort and recognize that even if we don't feel powerful as individuals, if enough of us get together, we can make pretty big change.
Dean Klinkenberg:I think it is an inspiring story on so many levels, in part because the changes are so dramatic in water quality when you look back. So I'm curious, though, you raise my curiosity with this. When when when people tell you they think the water quality is worse now than it was before, what what do they identify as problems? What what is driving that perception that the river is not doing so well today?
Abby Moore:I mean, people just assume that it's very polluted. I think there's some of it is based on just the fact that we're a big city on a river. People make the assumption. I can say from my personal experience, having grown up with my mom, who came from St. Paul and grew up right along the river, very close to where I grew up, she grew up before the Clean Water Act, and her reality was that the river was disgusting and it was so smelly that you didn't want to even be near it, and and people didn't engage with the river when I was growing up the way they do now. We did not have the park infrastructure and public access developed that exists now, and so I grew up in a time when it was getting better and better, but that was not my perception. My mom told me it was really, really dirty and terrible, and I grew up in fear of ever even like touching the water. So I think there's a lot of just historical momentum on the river being dirty or polluted, and so and and I guess you know Cassie and I both work for organizations who are trying to get the word out to the world. Like we've made a lot of improvement, and we should all be proud of ourselves. And you should enjoy the river, but it's still taking a while to kind of get that to permeate through various cultures. And I think there's also people who come from all over the country and all over the world who live here and have their own experience with rivers that they're just translating to ours.
Dean Klinkenberg:Right. Well, like having been lucky enough to travel to a lot of places, I mean, the Mississippi and the Twin Cities is far cleaner than most of the rivers I've been to in other parts of the world, even in Europe. So it's it's helped it's helpful maybe spread that message far and wide. And I imagine if you're an older person who grew up with that memories of you know the river being this stinky, dangerous place to go, it's really hard to shake that that image. And maybe some of that gets passed on to the kids as well, but partly what I'm hearing is that there's there really isn't a rational sort of basis for it. The river water quality is is pretty darn good these days, though there are still some threats. So take tell us then about Sacred Water Shared Future. What is the organization? Who's involved? What do you want to do?
Cassie Champion:Yeah, we're not really an organization. That's a very strong word. We are a loose partnership. So what what we did we came together starting in 2021 was with the idea that this 2026 anniversary of this landmark study is coming up, and it's a great opportunity to really focus some regional attention on the river, get people to understand a little bit about the historical context, and also really just find their own personal connection. And so we wanted to do that by creating a really engaging kind of for a long time, we called it an umbrella. Now we just call it our brand, Sacred Water Shared Future. That name, the logo, the tagline-that was our first three years of work. Was coming to that and doing a little bit of fundraising among the planning partners to build something that would be really broadly engaging, and that a lot of organizations would be able to see themselves fitting into and contributing to. So the the planning partners were primarily government and nonprofit organizations in the Twin Cities who are interested in the Mississippi River. And once once we got the campaign, the brand settled, and the campaign website launched.by late 2025, we really have been doing our best to spread the word to as many organizations as we can reach, to engage them, to encourage them to plan events, to reach out to their own audiences, to really broadly reach as many people in as many ways as possible to highlight our connections to the Mississippi River. However, we can.
Dean Klinkenberg:How's it going? What have you seen? Have you seen? Have you been around long enough yet to really see some concrete results from that? And if so, tell me about it.
Abby Moore:From the campaign itself?
Dean Klinkenberg:Yeah.
Abby Moore:So I actually should have checked the number, but I think we're close to 120 events registered in the Sacred Water Shared Future calendar, and and we've really we we built this whole thing with the assumption and correct one that organizations would be excited to participate in this campaign, mostly by leveraging activities, events that they would be having anyway along the river to learn about the river and celebration of the river, whatever, and then they connect it to the campaign to help raise awareness, and also help get the word out to a broader audience that their event is happening. So we've seen a lot of great engagement, participation events. Folks have, so on our website we have media resources, so organizations can put stuff in their newsletters. We've seen people do that, or organizations do that, I should say. Use our social media graphics. You know, just really trying to push push it out there as much as possible. And so, seeing all different kinds of organizations jump on board, and the one thing that we spend a lot of time clarifying is that Sacred Water Shared Future is not actually an organization. We don't even have any staff. We don't have a an office or even an email address. We're really just a bunch of organizations partnering on trying to get the word out about this important anniversary, and hopefully help magnify that message that we've made a lot of progress. And we also need to stay committed because the the work that we've done is what has paid off, but we can't take our eyes off the prize.
Cassie Champion:Maybe just a couple examples of some of our fun events. I hope your listeners would like to know that in Minneapolis we have a festival the last two weeks of January, first two weeks of February, called Art Shanties. So an art art shanty that's play on ice shanty, which is basically an ice fishing house. Only these are artist designed, artist created this kind of experiential out on a frozen lake. You just walk around, and some of them are puppets, some are music, some are visual art. We had a Sacred Water Shared Future art shanty. So the the outside was decorated kind of to look like the murky, dirty 1920s 1930s river with bubbles of methane gas and just the muddy color. And then you open the door and you're inside, and there and it looked like clean blue water and fish and plants. Then people could learn about the history of the river. We had actual art activity that they could contribute to. That's that is something that's going to be ongoing all year, and we'll produce like a really large installation. So that was that was our first. That was our kickoff event. That's a pretty fun one because that's sort of unique to the Twin Cities that we do stuff on top of our lakes in the winter, and coming up, one of maybe one of our biggest events will be the Minnesota State Fair, which is a real big deal up here. There's a whole building called the Eco Experience, and the the theme for this year is Sacred Water Shared Future. So there will be a big Mississippi River kind of art and history installation. I'm not privy to the design of it, other than to know that it's going to be something super cool. So I'm just as excited as anybody else to see it. But and so those are some of the bigger ones. There have been paddling events, other kinds of storytelling, story collection events, as many different kinds of ways as organizations can think of creating events that would connect people to the river. We're we're seeing those show up on our calendar.
Dean Klinkenberg:Hey, Dean Klinkenberg here interrupting myself. Just wanted to remind you that if you'd like to know more about the Mississippi River, check out my books. I write the Mississippi Valley Traveler guidebooks for people who want to get to know the Mississippi better. I also wrote'The Wild Mississippi,' a guide that goes deep into the complex ecosystems supported by the Mississippi, the plant and animal life that depends on them, and where you can go to experience it all. If you like fiction, check out my Frank Dodge mystery series. Each book is set in places along the Mississippi River. My newest book is a travel memoir called
'Better Safe Than Sorry:Slowboats, Chicken Busses, and the Radical Choice to Trust the World.' The book explores a
simple question:What happens when you stop asking "What if something goes wrong?" and start asking, "What if everything goes right?" Find out more at deanklinkenberg.com/bettersafethansorry. Well, I may have to try to get back up there for the state fair. I've been a couple times in the past.
Cassie Champion:You do totally have to get up here for the state fair.
Dean Klinkenberg:Yeah, but that that provides a little extra motivation for me to get up there maybe again this year. One of the things that I think is often a struggle when we talk about increasing engagement with the river and getting people to the river more is that the the river often has multiple uses. There's multiple demands on the river. So can you speak to a little bit how that plays out in the Twin Cities? Like, who are some of the different let's call them interests or whatever? What are the different kinds of uses that are at play, and is there how much competition or cooperation is there amongst those different kinds of uses?
Abby Moore:I can speak a little bit to the upstream of the most the the lock and dam in downtown Minneapolis that was the lock was closed in 2015, mostly because shipping traffic had basically died off, but also to prevent the migration of invasive carp up into the upper parts of the river. At this point, in this upper section of the river, at least through the Twin Cities, I mean, there's certainly multiple demands on it. Like we get our water, our drinking water for both Minneapolis and St. Paul comes from this upper stretch of the river. There's recreational traffic. There's stormwater drainage and that sort of thing, but it's relatively quiet up here, and it's there's a significant difference even once you get down into like downtown St. Paul and stuff where the barge traffic starts picking up at the port of St. Paul. And that's as as high up on the river as barges go now, and so. But up here, we're lucky in a lot of ways that we can really focus on building the public access and really work on connecting people to the river because they can get right up next to it and it's relatively safe. I should obviously caveat that we don't recommend people swim in the river because of currents and crazy changing bottoms and all that kind of stuff. But in general, like being next to the river is pretty safe, and being in a kayak or a small boat is also relatively safe because there's just not a lot of stuff out there to be competing for shipping lanes and things like that. So we're really lucky in that way that we can focus more on the connecting and enjoying the river and benefiting from our drinking water source, I don't know. Do you want to talk about anything downstream, Cassie? Once the barges come in
Cassie Champion:Yeah, I was just thinking about the and the University of Minnesota rowing crew has their crew house on the river, so that's kind of a unique thing. There's a there's also a crew house in St. Paul. I don't know how to think of that in terms of competition. Like there, you know, it's a big river. There's houseboats. There's fishing boats. There's fishing piers. There's, it's all there. Like you can kind of get to know the river any way you want to. There's historic Native American sites to see in downtown St. Paul, there's all all of the possible airport, all of the possible ways of connecting with the river, kind of condensed just just in our little region.
Abby Moore:I will say that I'm always really amazed when I because I'm so familiar with the river in the Twin Cities, and particularly the stretch of Minneapolis upstream of the closed lock. I am amazed when I go to like St. Louis or some of the bigger cities that are downstream from us. Just how big the river is and how much is going on. We just don't have that here.
Dean Klinkenberg:Right.
Abby Moore:Yeah. the The river here is a gorge. So if that's another thing that's special, it's the only gorge on the Mississippi River. So, instead of the the wide flat water that you see further south, we've got steep cliff cliff sides on either side of our river for much of the stretch of the Twin Cities.
Dean Klinkenberg:Yeah, and I don't think there are many parts of the Mississippi where you'd be able to like successfully have the rent a kayak stations, you know, where people can put in at one place and then ride down to a few miles down to to take out. And now, of course, you can have a floating hot tub you can rent and see how that goes. I may have to try that one of these days. You occasionally have tour boats, you know, steamboat replicas that'll be you know around, but not none of the heavy traffic until downtown St. Paul. Yeah, although there is a lot of recreational traffic, especially beginning around St. Paul, the boats get a little bigger. There are more marinas, so you have I guess they're they're conflicting uses in a sense that you have you know some of those users need slightly different kinds of river, and they probably have advocate for the river to be a particular way, so they can take their bigger boats out, or so the tour boats can can do their tours, or or those kinds of things.
Abby Moore:Yeah.
Dean Klinkenberg:But there's not much in the way of really substantial flood risk either, because most of you know most of the areas that would be affected by high water are not inhabited at this point.
Abby Moore:Right. Right. Yeah, that's some changes from the early 20th century. Yep.
Dean Klinkenberg:No Bohemia Flats anymore.
Cassie Champion:Exactly. Exactly.
Dean Klinkenberg:So when you're there is sort of like a big decision coming up soon, and I don't know how involved you are with this, but there is sort of this ongoing study with the Corps of Engineers about what to do with the decommissioned locks and dams. Do you do you have any any thoughts on that process, or any any sense about where that could be headed, or what possibilities excite you?
Abby Moore:I don't I don't know. I mean, honestly, there's it's it's really cool to think about the restoration of a free flowing river through a part of our area, and just the potential to restore some more of the natural ecology of the area, and also be able to just experience the river in a slightly more dynamic way. I think can also connect people to it differently. There's certainly a lot of interests, though, who care a lot about maintaining a steady river level for the things that they use the water for and or the river for. My organization hasn't really weighed in on this yet. I think we're kind of waiting to see what happens. You know, we're always interested in the water quality implications and what kinds of work we can and should be doing to make sure that we're maintaining and improving water quality in the river, and so I think we're we're waiting to see what happens. But it's really interesting to hear the conversations and hear kind of the interests on both ends and think about what the implications are of a free-it's a slightly free-flowing river flowing through a major metropolitan area, just because of the need, because of the infrastructure, the need to sort of feel like there's some level of control or predictability about what it's going to do.
Dean Klinkenberg:Right. Yeah. I mean, I don't mind, you know, mentioning some of the the interests here. I mean, I have a friend who's part of the rowing club, and I know they've been very adamant in wanting to maintain the river as for them because they've grown accustomed to having that available, that access, which is kind of, which would be probably would go away if the other vision was enacted that would have a more free-flowing river. I'm kind of curious. Like the other, it seems like the other factor in this that is important, though, is the issues around maybe water quality or drinking water. That can you just sort of fill me in on the where where where are the pipes or the the stations that pull water from the Mississippi, and how might that be impacted by more free-flowing Mississippi if the dams were removed?
Abby Moore:So the intake for both St. Paul and Minneapolis are up north of Minneapolis on the river. There is a dam that would be maintained in order to maintain the water level necessary to ensure deep enough water to pull what's needed for those two cities. So, the dams that they're talking about removing, neither one of them would impact Minneapolis or St. Paul's water intake. So, yeah, I don't actually think there's an intake in this section. Whatever that Pool 1 and 2 would it be, Cassie, that would be combined?
Cassie Champion:Yeah, that's right.
Abby Moore:I don't think that I'm aware of any water intake on that section that would be impacted. So that's obviously a really significant concern, and because we rely on river water, I guess it's lucky that we have enough dams that we can think about how to maintain one and take a few out, and still, you know, enjoy the predictability of a water level that's high enough to supply our drinking water and a section of river that's more more free flowing.
Dean Klinkenberg:Yeah, that so that's yeah for people who are unfamiliar with that part of the river. It's the Upper Saint Anthony Lock and Dam. That dam is not going to be removed. That one is the one that's essential to maintaining the water level for the intake. And so it's the Lower Saint Anthony Falls Lock and Dam, and then the Ford Dam or Lock and Dam One, that are being considered for removal. I have a wastewater question. I think so.
Cassie Champion:I'll do my best.
Dean Klinkenberg:I know there there's I think there are even some federal mandates around this. That there we're we're at a period of time now where there's a movement to try to separate storm runoff from sewage runoff is that right? Can you speak a little bit to how that's playing out in your area and what the challenges of executing that are?
Cassie Champion:Yeah, that's that's another really important piece of Twin Cities water history is that sewer separation was largely completed by the early '90s. So obviously an an enormous amount of public effort, public investment, public coordination to ensure that that happened. But largely in the Twin Cities, the stormwater goes to some receiving water body and the sewer, the the sewage is going through pipes to a wastewater treatment plant. We don't we don't have sewer overflows in the Twin Cities. We just don't have them.
Dean Klinkenberg:How did that happen so early?
Cassie Champion:They that's that was just a I can't speak as well as a historian would, but that was just a really high priority soon after the Clean Water Act.
Dean Klinkenberg:All right. So I know I know here in St. Louis we're still struggling with that, and we have a big project underway to to bore tunnels underground for stormwater runoff, but it's expensive. It's very expensive in existing cities to pull this off. That's part of the challenge. I know my water bill is about to double, and it's not just because of that, but also because we're an old city. We have old pipes that need to be replaced. All of that, of course, affects water quality. All of all that runoff, you know, ends up in the Mississippi, and we do have periods after heavy rain where we have untreated sewage that ends up dumping into the Mississippi. Does that so that doesn't happen in in the Twin Cities?
Cassie Champion:We don't do that here. Darn it! No beach closures. No nothing.
Abby Moore:One thing I think that this is illustrating too is that the state and the local governments in Minnesota we take we take water seriously and like keeping our a lot of our identity is water here, and so the river is just one of tons of bodies of water that are being actively protected by lots of different layers of government and advocacy groups and that sort of thing. And so, anyway, I think the effort to do that combined sewer separation early. I mean, it still happened you know, 20 years or so after the implementation of the Clean Water Act, but they got on it right away, and yeah. So for a long time now, we've had separated sewers, which yes, I'm sure has made a really significant difference in the water quality of our section of river.
Dean Klinkenberg:So, in in your experience, then, like, what sort of messages seem to be especially persuasive when you talk with folks about the mechanisms to improve water quality or valuing the quality of water, the river quality, water quality in the river?
Abby Moore:A lot of times, I it's helpful, you know, when I have the opportunity to actually like have interactions with people about water quality and protecting water quality, to find some sort of common ground about why water is important to us, or at least acknowledge that it's important. We don't have to have the same reasons. I think you know different folks have different values around water and the things that they like to do. There's a lot of people who fish, for instance, on our section of the river. But this messaging certainly goes across the state, where there's a lot of people who like to fish and swim and have experiences going to lakes and stuff around the country or around the state for vacations, and so right there, that sort of connection with water can be helpful for kind of a ground, common ground about why it's important to protect it. And then the other piece that I think can be really like helpful for folks to think about is the fact that our drinking water comes from the river, and that we have really, really high quality drinking water here, but that comes with a lot of effort to protect water quality. So after that, I think really just helping people understand what it is that creates water quality problems in our section of river and in the Twin Cities Metro, like one of the most significant, if not the most significant, source of stormwater pollution here is from landscaping debris breaking down leaves and grass clippings and sticks and things like that, and so recognizing that is actually like a pretty easy solve. Like if we pay attention to the way that we take care of our yards and dispose of or secure that landscaping debris, that can make a big difference. Little things like planting deep-rooted native plants instead of turf grass everywhere makes a difference. So really helping people just understand some of the basic mechanisms for how the river gets polluted, and some of the really low-hanging fruit. Picking up dog poop, throwing trash in a garbage can you know, things like that make a big difference. And so by adopting those behaviors ourselves and encouraging communities that we exist in to do the same. That's how we can make a really big difference. I also always think it's really great to highlight those communities on a small scale who are doing things that are really impactful, reducing their salt use as a like a homeowners association who's working hard to reduce their salt use, or high school campus that's overhauled a lot of their landscaping to include more native plants, or things like that that are really accessible and help people understand how they can be involved in protecting water quality.
Cassie Champion:I'll just add on, talking to people about built water infrastructure, like explaining that because it's really it's pretty invisible, and it's not the the built water cycle is just not as well understood as the natural water cycle, but they're not separate from each other. So that's a message that I share wherever I can. Like, how does the water that comes out of a cloud get into your shower? Kind of those the the way we get drinking water into our homes and businesses, and then where does it go after we use it? That's a critical part of the water cycle and understanding our connectedness to water, and it's a it's a huge amount of what we pay for in terms of our connectedness to water. So the public needs to understand why it matters, why they're using it, and why we spend so much money doing this.
Dean Klinkenberg:That's good. I kind of feel like sometimes people have lost touch with where so many of things come from, like you know where the water comes from in our homes, but also like eggs come from the grocery store, right? Like we're not always in tune with the whole life cycle of where this these things come from. Yeah, I'm also like a huge fan of helping individuals find something they can do that isn't just a token effort, but actually is a step in in improving the water quality of the world around them. That's why I like the idea of the native plantings. Yeah, we just redid our backyard here last year with native plants, and I'm having a lot of fun this summer watching it take over and trying to figure out what to plant next. But it also made me wonder. Like, given your winters, like salt, road salt, and ice salt for sidewalks, and all has to be a major threat to water quality, but also to the potential pollution of the ground. What are the alternatives that you are advocating for now instead of using salt?
Abby Moore:Right now, there is nothing that we are aware of that can melt ice on the scale and for the amount of money that salt costs. So there isn't really like an alternative per se. But what we have really worked on, and this is happening at the state level as well as on in regional and local government and lots of advocacy organizations, is using the right amount of salt in the right places at the right time. So really, just trying to educate the public, which is hard because it's not really that hard like the information, but it's just something to keep track of. And when we're not applying salt all the time, most people don't really want to think about it. But really, just recognizing what salt can do, how much is needed, and what are some practices that can be adopted to actually reduce or completely eliminate the need to use salt. Because yes, salt is a very, very significant pollutant to our waterways in Minnesota, and we know that there's it's very persistent. So once it's there, once it's in the water, it is basically impossible to remove, and continues to accumulate, and eventually will kill off what's living. We have we live in a place with freshwater ecosystems, so salt water doesn't really work. Anyway, so really trying to work on public awareness and education is the focus right now, as well as looking for opportunities, maybe for regulation when it's reasonable to kind of hold applicators responsible for the amount of salt that they're using.
Dean Klinkenberg:Yeah. Yeah, it's a little more difficult. I mean, I will say, like part of it seems like part of the longer term solution is reducing car dependency, so you don't need to salt as many roads. That would be a good step in the right direction. Our climate is different here. We don't get the cold that you do, or at least not for as long. So I had reasonably good luck using sand on my sidewalk. If it's going to be icy, at least it provides a little bit of rough surface for me, so I'm less likely to fall. But it certainly doesn't melt anything. Like, so it's not a substitute. Yeah. But yeah.
Abby Moore:One thing like sand, but maybe a little bit better. You could try it. We've been having some success in the Twin Cities with chicken grit, which is just larger and more angular, so it actually sometimes like kind of sinks into the ice or the snow in a way that it creates a pretty good traction surface, and it's much easier to sweep up. You know, sand is fine here and there, but it adds to the sediment load in our waterways when it gets washed away and down storm drains. And so, you know, we with salt, with sand, with grit, we ask that folks go out and sweep it up once it's done its job. But the grit is a lot easier to sweep up than anything else.
Dean Klinkenberg:Yeah, there is that. Well, mindful of the time, I think we probably need to go ahead and call this one a wrap. So, tell folks how they can learn more about Sacred Water Shared Future. Where's the best place for folks to go to learn more about it?
Cassie Champion:If you're interested, you could go to our website, which is sacredwatersharedfuture.org, and if you go there, we've got some really dramatic 1933 video footage that corresponds to the quote that I read out of the travel memoir. You'll see the bubbling methane gas. You'll see the floating sludge mats. No, nobody captured the smell, and I I think we can just all be happy about that. But we've we've got a few other videos describing and kind of sharing about the campaign. And then, if if you're interested, go ahead and grab one of our social media graphics, share it on your own personal social media, your organization's social media. We've got template newsletter articles. If you publish a newsletter, we'd be really happy to have you share our message and grab that template, adapt it for your audience, and feel free to reach out to us as well. Our organizations and our contact information is available through the website. So that's that's our that's our planning hub, and we're happy to welcome you to it.
Dean Klinkenberg:Great, and I don't know why every metropolitan area wouldn't want to do something similar. So
Cassie Champion:Seriously, yeah, exactly.
Dean Klinkenberg:Well, Cassie and Abby, thank you so much for your time. This was terrific. I really appreciate the conversation and sharing more about the history of the Mississippi there and the and the efforts to really improve the water quality. It's such a good story, such an inspiring story. I hope we can can spread it far and wide, and that people in the Twin Cities even recognize how how special it is. Thank you for your time.
Abby Moore:Thank you so much. Thanks for helping us spread the word.
Cassie Champion:Thanks for having us. This has been great.
Dean Klinkenberg:Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the series on your favorite podcast app so you don't miss out on future episodes. I offer the podcast for free, but when you support the show with a few bucks through Patreon, you help keep the program going, just go to Patreon.com/deanklinkenberg. If you want to know more about the Mississippi River, check out my books. I write the Mississippi Valley Traveler guidebooks for people who want to get to know the Mississippi better. I also write the Frank Dodge mystery series that's set in places along the river. Find them wherever books are sold. The Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast is written and produced by me, Dean Klinkenberg. Original music by Noah Fence. See you next time.
