The Upper Mississippi Basin Stakeholders Network (UMBSN) is a McKnight Foundation grant-funded project of the Department of Resource Analysis, Saint Mary's University of Minnesota, Winona, Minnesota. The UMBSN strives to increase water quality in the upper Midwest by improving agricultural land use practices with regard to nutrients, sediments, and contaminations, and their effects on groundwater and surface waters by providing information, news, and a unique short environmental fiction series called "The Upper Basin Chronicles," to an audience of land and water managers, scientists, educators, farmers, business people, environmentalists, and various associated organizations.

The UMBSN is a network of stakeholders, i.e,. organizations and individuals interested in the upper basin's soil and water conservation issues, the loss of sediment and nutrients, and the related effects on water quality. The stakeholders include farm organizations, environmental organizations, watershed management alliances, county soil and water conservation districts, landowners, tribes, and federal and state agencies in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin.

McKnight Foundation Awards $160,000 to UMBSN
March 19, 2003. We're pleased and proud and to announce new funding from the McKnight Foundation in a recent environmental program grant to support the two-year old Upper Mississippi Basin Stakeholder Network (UMBSN) project, directed by Barry Drazkowski. The network was originally funded by the McKnight Foundation, as well. The new two-year funding focuses on the UMBSN mission for improvement in Upper River basin water quality and sediment and nutrient management. Activities will include outreach to regional watershed groups, stakeholder feedback, continuing work on the UMBSN web site, and its "Upper Basin Chronicles" environmental fiction serial written by John Gabbert. A key new element in this award will be revitalizing and publishing the "Mississippi Monitor," a periodical newspaper to inform stakeholders on river issues, including pending regulation and legislation. The Monitor will be edited by Scott Faber, who was also the editor of the original "Mississippi Monitor." The new paper will offer a broad interest and scope to include perspectives from all stakeholders. The Upper Mississippi Basin Stakeholder Network (UMBSN) is a project of the Saint Mary's University of Minnesota Department of Resource Analysis, GeoSpatial Services. The department offers graduate level geographic information systems (GIS) education and certification. Its GeoSpatial Services provides complete GIS consulting and contracting services for both business and government. We are sincerely appreciative of the McKnight Foundation's support and trust. Thank you, also, to our many Upper Basin stakeholder friends for their encouragement and support.

Contact Information
Upper Mississippi Basin Stakeholders Network
360 Vila Street, #7
Winona, MN 55987
Ph: 507-457-8714
Fx: 507-457-6604
umbsn@smumn.edu
Attn: Barry Drazkowski

Directions
See or download a map (pdf, 181K). We're at the corner of Vila and Seventh Streets.

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UMBSN Newsletter LIST (These links lead to a system that will be temporarily inactive due to lack of funding. 4/15/05)
To subscribe to the UMBSN newsletter, send a blank email message to:
join-umbsnlist@booboo.smumn.edu

To unsubscribe, send a blank email message to:
leave-umbsnlist@booboo.smumn.edu