Upper Mississippi River refuge celebrates 100 years (2024)

Have you ever seen a tundra swan or a raft of canvasback ducks floating together?

Opportunities to see these birds are rare in the Midwest — unless you visit the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, a 261-mile corridor of the Mississippi River that includes Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois.

The refuge, cradled in the Driftless Area and bordered by steep wooded bluffs, includes nearly 250,000 acres of flood plain forests, braided river channels, marshes and prairie that provide habitat to more than 300 bird species.

But the refuge — which celebrates 100 years on June 7 — may not exist if not for the Izaak Walton League of America. Founder Will Dilg learned in the early 1920s of a plan to drain large areas of the Mississippi River’s backwaters, so he and other nature lovers persuaded Congress to create the refuge, now managed by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

Scott Kovarovics, executive director of the Izaak Walton League of America, reflected on the 100th anniversary of the refuge in a recent interview.

Q: What was happening with animal species in 1923, when Dilg started campaigning for a river refuge?

A: “We think today about white-tailed deer, turkeys, bass being ubiquitous. At that point in time, in the early 1920s, many of those species were teetering on the brink of extinction.”

Q: It took just one year after Dilg suggested this plan for Congress to approve it. What made Congress act so quickly?

A: “His campaign was really the template for the modern grassroots conservation movement. He must have been pounding the hallways in Congress day after day. He had an advertising background, so he understood how to work with the media and you truly had to have grassroots engagement. Women had just gotten the right to vote and these issues were important to them.”

Q: What parallels do you see between 1924 and 2024 in terms of conservation challenges in America?

A: “Back in the 1920s, rivers and streams across America were open sewers. Fast forward to the 1960s and the 1970s, you think about water pollution, air pollution, litter. These things were visceral for the American people and that drove action. In the 50 years since, when you think about clean water, for example, tremendous progress has been made. That makes engaging a broader cross-section of Americans and advocates for conservation a little more challenging than it was back then.”

Q: Only about 3 percent of Iowa’s acres are public land. How do areas like the Upper Mississippi refuge function within the overall agricultural landscape?

A: “When you look at that 250,000 acres, the land is protected to some degree and its natural functions are still healthy. The challenge is that sometimes these protected places end up being a little bit of an island, but they’re not an island that is somehow walled off and protected from the broader conservation challenges we face.”

Q: Last year the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in Sackett v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that reduced protections for wetlands. Are the wetlands in the Upper Mississippi refuge at risk?

A: “Someone’s not going to be able to come in and drain the wetlands within the refuge, but I think it’s going to have an indirect impact. We’ve got the refuge on a map, but it’s surrounded by a broader landscape, which still has significant problems with polluted runoff. (Unprotected wetlands and streams) could be the conduit to more pollution into the Mississippi River and into the refuge.”

Q: What is the Izaak Walton League doing to protect water quality?

A: “We have volunteer science programs like Nitrate Watch and Save Our Streams that are designed not only to measure pollution, but reduce pollution at the source.”

Nitrate Watch was established by the league in 2023 to address nitrate pollution in surface water and drinking water. Volunteers across the country monitor nitrate concentrations and the data is reported at the league’s Clean Water Hub online.

Q: What are other priorities for the league, which has 200 chapters, including one in Linn County?

A: “Congress needs to pass a pro-conservation farm bill this summer. We need to put more emphasis on improving soil health. If we do that, we’ll see multiple benefits, including reduced runoff and keeping soil in the field where we need it to grow our crops and hold more carbon in the ground. One of our top priorities is expanding participation in volunteer science across the country.”

Comments: (319) 339-3157; erin.jordan@thegazette.com