We recently (1-2 October 2014) launched the draft Mississippi River report card in Louisville, KY as part of the America's Watershed Initiative Summit. The process of developing the report card is depicted in the following poem I wrote for the occasion.

We started out in St. Louis, Missouri

We set the goal--a watershed report card

We figured, it can't be too hard

But we were tackling the entire Mississippi!

The Mississippi watershed is much of United States

So we broke it down into basins

And held off on our vacations

So we could learn each basin's traits

We headed to Moline and then to Cincinnati

Then Memphis and Tulsa and Rapid City

We got to see the Ohio and Arkansas--very pretty

But best of all was the mighty Mississippi

We learned about all sorts of recreation

Flood control and economic wealth

Water supply and ecosystem health

And of course the all important navigation

We learned about tugs and what they tow

Barges with coal, grain, gravel and steel

The levees and dikes are a big deal

With locks and dams linking to the Gulf of Mexico

We learned about Rocky Mountain scenes

Across the Great Plains in America's heartland

From Canada and the Great Lakes

All the way down to New Orleans

We learned about giant catfish and sturgeon

Deltas, bottomland hardwoods, and wetlands

All kinds of sediments--silts and sands

Even droughts and floods before we were done

We made indicators using this knowledge

For a report card of the entire watershed

Using good data to give it some cred

And then gathered in Louisville to make a pledge

We pledged restoration in both drier and wetter

In river sections both upper and lower

In tributaries both faster and slower

All in all, we pledged to make the Mississippi better.

Chorus:

Come find the Mississippi River of Mark Twain

You can get there by boat or by car or by train

You will find that you have so much to gain

Come find the Mississippi River of Mark Twain