Thanks to your support we now have the Mississippi River Restoration and Resilience Initiative (MRRRI) Act! 

The Mississippi River Restoration and Resilience Initiative (MRRRI) would invest in: 

• Improving drinking water quality in our Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico;
• Promoting community resilience to climate change, and reduce flood risk by restoring floodplains, riverine wetlands, delta, and coastal wetlands, and backwaters;
• Protecting and restoring wildlife habitat throughout our River corridor; 
• Preventing the spread of aquatic invasive species in our River system; and
• Providing dedicated funding to benefit communities of color and economically disadvantaged communities that have borne the highest costs of environmental degradation. 

The Mississippi River Restoration and Resilience Initiative is modeled on successful existing federal initiatives, such as the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, Puget Sound Partnership, Chesapeake Bay Program, and the Everglades Restoration Initiative. 

What is the Mississippi River Restoration and Resilience Initiative (MRRRI)?

The Mississippi River Restoration and Resilience Initiative (MRRRI) is non-regulatory. This means that it doesn’t create any new laws and isn’t meant to enforce existing ones. Instead, the Mississippi River Restoration and Resilience Initiative works by providing grant opportunities for state and local governments, tribes, and nonprofit organizations throughout the river corridor. MRRRI would plan and fund new restoration activities with these entities in the driver’s seat. 

Are you part of a nonprofit organization, state, local, or tribal government? If you are, then you too would be able to apply for grant opportunities to fund restoration and resilience projects in your River community if MRRRI is passed as law. 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), working with other relevant federal agencies, would coordinate existing federal programs and ensure that partners are working toward the same goals. MRRRI will also advance our scientific understanding of the challenges facing the river and how to meet them by establishing a network of research centers along the river corridor.

The Mississippi River Restoration and Resilience Initiative has a strong focus on equity and justice, and it directs 35 percent of all funding to such efforts. We know that neither the benefits nor the burdens brought by the Mississippi River are equitably shared. MRRRI would prioritize the above restoration and resilience investments in communities of color and economically disadvantaged populations.