In 2005, the McKnight Foundation approached a number of organizations in states adjacent to the Mississippi River to create a collaborative that would take a holistic approach to water policy in the Mississippi River basin, creating the Mississippi River Collaborative.
 

The Collaborative works together in a coordinated and strategic fashion to promote clean water policies across the Mississippi River Basin states. This coordination has led to a number of successes that would not have been achieved had the groups set about individually to accomplish them. 

• We have coordinated and commented on nearly 500 permits.
• We have increased our groups’ involvement in state farm programs by 48%.
• We commissioned a report by the Environmental Law Institute to assess the water quality criteria and standards of each state that will be vital for upcoming triennial review of water quality standards.
• We were privileged to work with national experts to review and prepare comments on the nutrient criteria documents of six states that will, hopefully, lead to the adoption of state numeric criteria standards.

 
A major component of the work with do with the Collaborative is focused on reducing nutrient - phosporus and nitrogen - pollution from contaminating our state waters as well as contributing to the Gulf of Mexico "Dead Zone," which is a vast area of hypoxic water at the mouth of the Mississippi River. This Dead Zone is almost completely depleted of dissolved oxygen, prevent fish, shrimp, crabs, and several other types of aquatic life from living in the entire area.  The 2011 Dead Zone is predicted to be the worst in recorded history.