Congress must demand a higher return for the environment in exchange for our more than $8 billion annual investment in agricultural subsidies. Maintaining the status quo is a risky over-reliance on largely voluntary measures that have and will fall short of keeping our waters clean.” Agricultural pollution is a top cause of degraded rivers and […]
Agriculture
New “Dead Zone” Video from our Collaborative Friends
Prairie Rivers Network has been part of the Mississippi River Collaborative since 2005. Our goal is to improve water quality in the Mississippi River Basin and reduce the size of the Gulf of Mexico “Dead Zone.” This new video from Gulf Restoration Network (our Louisiana colleagues) discusses some of the science and causality behind the […]
Illinois Hog Facility Fined for Fish Kill
Justice has finally been served in Iroquois County! In 2009, over 110,000 fish were killed after the R3E hog operation illegally discharged some 200,000 gallons of waste into a tributary of Spring Creek. The waste had been stored in holding ponds, but got into an underground pipe system that flows into the tributary. Earlier this week, the […]
Making Friends in Big Bureau Watershed
Prairie Rivers Network is one of the Friends of Big Bureau Creek Watershed. This multi-stakeholder group is devoted to reducing sediment and nutrient pollution in Big Bureau Creek and its tributaries in north-central Illinois. The Friends consists of government agencies, non-profit organizations, and businesses working together to increase conservation on farmland in the highly agricultural […]
Our Priorities for the 2012 Farm Bill
The Farm Bill is a massive piece of federal legislation that is reviewed and reauthorized approximately every 5 years. It includes government programs for nutrition, rural development, energy, agricultural production, and conservation. Prairie Rivers Network seeks to influence the Farm Bill because it contains agricultural conservation programs that improve water quality. These programs have produced […]
