Jackson Free Press

Mississippi rates a lowly D+ for protecting the quality of natural water sources, according to the Gulf Restoration Network. The organization, an alliance of local individuals and national and regional groups, issued a report card grading how committed (or non-committed) state officials are at incorporating the standards of the Clean Water Act of 1977. The Clean Water Act established goals of reducing national water pollution and eliminating the release of water fouled with high amounts of toxic waste.

Mississippi, according to the report card, joins the states of Florida, Alabama, Texas and Louisiana in failing to reduce toxins spilling into their rivers and exacerbating the gulf dead zone—a region of deoxygenated water that obliterates both fish and the fishing industry in some regions of the Gulf. The dead zone is expected to be larger than 8,000 square miles this year, which may set a new record, and it threatens the $650 million Gulf fishing industry. Shrimp habitat in Louisiana has been reduced by 25 percent in recent years.

No Gulf state has taken adequate steps to reduce nitrogen and phosphorous run-off leeching into rivers from farming and cultivation, which fuels the dead zone, according to the report card. Nor have states made attempts to use the most modern and effective methods to protect the public from disease-causing microscopic organisms draining into rivers from municipal wastewater treatment plants.

The report card also awards a near failing grade for Mississippi's lackadaisical drive in getting its citizens aware of water-quality issues and involved in the process of reducing pollution.

Also helping earn Mississippi's low grade is the state's unwillingness to designate any of its rivers or lakes as "Outstanding Natural Resource Waters," a classification bringing with it the maximum amount of protection offered under the Clean Water Act.

Cynthia Ramseur said she believed several systems in the state really deserved the designation.

"The Pascagoula River system is the largest in Mississippi, by volume, that's not hydrologically impeded. There are no dams on it, except for some in the headwater streams, but nothing that impacts the wild flow of the river," said Ramseur, president of Natural Capital Development in Ocean Springs. "That whole river basin is very unique, beautiful and contains very diverse wildlife. One river in that system, Black Creek, for example, is very deserving of that classification."

Casey DeMoss Roberts, special projects coordinator with the Gulf Restoration Network said in a statement that the organization hoped the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality would take the low score to heart and adopt the rules necessary to "end water quality backsliding" and protect the state's most pristine waterways.