“The Nature Conservancy played a pivotal role in the creation of America’s Watershed Initiative and the initiative’s new Report Card for the 31-state Mississippi River Watershed, which stretches from Montana to West Virginia and from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. Water that flows in the heartland rivers within America’s Watershed is used to produce more than half of the nation’s goods and services, including agricultural products worth more than $50 billion a year and much of America’s energy production. 

The new Report Card includes analyses and grades for six goals:
•    Water supply
•    The economy
•    Ecosystem health
•    Transportation
•    Flood control
•    Recreation
More than 400 businesses, associations, government agencies, science organizations, academic institutions and non-profit organizations who are part of America’s Watershed Initiative have worked together over the past two years to produce this Report Card, which is the first-ever of its type.
The Report Card also includes measures and grades for five major basins within the Mississippi River Watershed:
•    The Upper Mississippi River Basin
•    The Ohio/Tennessee River Basin
•    The Lower Mississippi River Basin
•    The Arkansas/Red River Basin
•    The Missouri River Basin.”