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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Cleaning Up the Mississippi – Congress Considers Data Solution

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Thursday, June 24, 2010   

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. - Making its way through Congress, the Upper Mississippi River Basin Protection Act is aimed at cleaning up the region's waterways. The law would establish a monitoring network that would collect data and inventory their nutrient and sediment content.

Doug Peterson, president of the Minnesota Farmer's Union, says the monitoring system is important, given the most recent listings by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, which identified more than 2,500 bodies of water as "impaired."

"The implication, if you're in Minnesota, ends up being control over future development of resources - what can and can't be done or built, or what types of businesses, industries or recreation are going to surround those waters."

The water-quality standards are based on a wide range of pollutants, including bacteria, nutrients and mercury. A body of water is considered "impaired" if it fails to meet one or more of these standards.

Peterson says that with only 40 percent of the state's water resources assessed to date, it is critical to Minnesota's economy to identify where the pollution "hot spots" are located and devise a plan for clean-up.

Since more than 60 percent of the river basin is cropland or pasture, Peterson points out that private landowners are logical partners, and their needs should be factored into any monitoring network.

"The critical integrity of that data should be sensitive to the landowner's privacy."

The House version of the bill passed in March. The Senate bill, authored by Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, is making its way through committee. The full text of the Senate bill can be found at www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-2779.



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