Nick Chastil and Katy Reckdahl on working conditions at Angola’s Farm Line, with an eye on summer heat, and execution in Louisiana, following the first state execution in more than a decade.
Posted inEnvironment
Mississippi River named the most endangered of 2025 by non-profit American Rivers
With budget losses to both the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers, mitigation grant programs to address riverine flooding could be impacted substantially. According to FEMA, every federal dollar spent on flood mitigation yields $7 in benefits.
Posted inDown the Drain
Down the Drain: A watershed moment for America’s greatest wetlands
The Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, a journalism collaborative based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in partnership with Report for America, publishes an examination of how legal and policy changes will impact wetlands in the basin.
Posted inDown the Drain
One Iowa landowner fights to farm a designated wetland. Others could face consequences downstream
The 1985 “Swampbuster” law — which has protected millions of acres of U.S. wetlands from being cleared and plowed — is being challenged in court.
Posted inDown the Drain
A Mississippi flood relief project could harm 90,000 acres of valuable wetlands. Is it worth the tradeoff?
The Yazoo Pumps project purports to reduce flooding while protecting farmers and minimizing environmental harm. But concerns over wetland degradation have stymied past, smaller versions of the project.
Posted inDown the Drain
Framing wetlands as a flooding solution won bipartisan support in Wisconsin. Could it work elsewhere?
Communities across the state are testing the economic value of grant programs to build new wetlands that reduce flooding risk. In the upper Midwest, researchers found that wetlands save nearly $23 billion a year that would otherwise be spent combating floods.
Posted inDown the Drain
‘A living laboratory’: An accidental delta taught Louisiana scientists how to rebuild wetlands
While the science is clear – wetlands have lots of benefits and we know how to build more of them – the future is not. The growing Wax Lake Delta provided data for the now-stalled Mid-Barataria sediment diversion, which is designed to rebuild wetlands in nine parishes along the Louisiana Gulf Coast.
Posted inDown the Drain
Wetlands protections built an industry for mitigation banking. Rollbacks could erode it.
In the wake of federal rollbacks, states are now choosing whether to further degrade or expand wetlands protections. Some conservationists fear that a loss of protections will increase the price of mitigation credits while decreasing the demand.
Posted inDown the Drain
Delta duck hunting offers conservation solutions, but the ducks are disappearing
Arkansas has no state laws specifically for wetland protection, leading conservationists to depend on funds raised by duck stamps. But waterfowl populations are under increasing threats leading to fewer ducks, and ultimately fewer hunters, and fewer dollars to protect the ducks and the wetlands they call home.
Posted inDown the Drain
For sport or food, love of birds is saving grace for America’s wetlands
Nearly all of the wetlands in Minnesota’s prairie region have been destroyed. Many of the few that remain – an estimated 5% of the total before settlement – were saved by duck hunters.