[iframe http://www.grassroutes.us/campaigns/93/iframe 300px 700px] This week, our U.S.Senators are taking up the Farm Bill, a massive piece of legislation that is renewed approximately every 5 years. The Farm Bill covers a broad array of food-related topics, from food stamps to farmer subsidies. Within the Farm Bill is an important provision called Conservation Compliance, which requires […]
Agriculture
Crop Insurance Subsidies Should be Linked to Land Stewardship
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 […]
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 […]
