Missouri River

30,000,000 - present

As America's longest river, The Missouri has been a vital source of transportation and economic growth in the Great Plains for hundreds of years. Formed over a million years ago, North America’s indigenous people thrived around this great source of water. The river bottomlands provided ideal spots for homesites, the floodplains gave water for crops, and the bluffs protected the earliest people from depredation and extreme weather. Early American settlers developed the land around the river while decimating populations of Bison on the Plains. An effort to channelize and dam the Missouri began in the late 1800s, providing resources for mining operations and growing industrialized towns. However, this effort destroyed natural habitats while clearing land for agricultural purposes. The Carolina Parakeet, which once lived in the old forests along the river, went extinct in the early 1900s, an example of how quickly development and deforestation can remove a species from the environment. The once common black-footed ferret, now extremely endangered in North America, is linked to the decline and fragmentation of prairie land along Missouri. Many species have faced hardship in the region from development, pollution, overfishing, and climate change. The least tern, piping plover, pallid sturgeon, plains minnow, and paddlefish, in addition to many other species, have struggled. There are six major dams on the mainstem of the Missouri. While they provide benefits like flood control, irrigation, and hydropower, they alter the habitats of approximately 150 fish species. The Missouri River region offers a home to several mammals, such as mink, river otter, beaver, and muskrat, and over 300 species of birds. As climate change affects global temperatures and seasonal precipitation, flooding on the Missouri has become more common and severe. The “Big Muddy” covers a huge expanse of the nation, encompassing a wide variety of native ecosystems and unique species. As climate change and development push forward, countless species are threatened through the loss of riparian habitat, stream bank erosion, and delta formation.

BIRDS: 3 species are extinct and 3 species are endangered
FISH: 2 species are endangered and 51 are rare
MAMMALS: 1 species is extinct
AQUATIC INSECTS: reduced by 70%
MUSSELS: 2 species are endangered
INVASIVE SPECIES: 34 invasive and non-native species

The territory of the Missouri River falls within the ancestral homelands of the Arikara, Assiiniboine, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Chickasaw, Crow, Delaware, Hidatsa, Hunkpapa, Illini, Ioway, Itazipco, Jiwere, Kanza, Kaskaskia, Kaw, Kickapoo, Sac & Fox, Shawnee, Mandan, Métis, Mnicoujou, Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, Omaha, Osage, Otoe-Missouria, Peoria, Ponca, Quapaw, and Yankton peoples.

Territorial recognition: https://native-land.ca/.

Most Pressing issues

Dams

There are 6 major dams on the mainstem of the Missouri and numerous others throughout its tributaries. Damming creates reservoirs that alter natural habitats and species migration. Dams have dramatically changed the flow of the Missouri and its wildlife over the past century. Major engineering projects damage natural landscapes and further the development of wild lands.

Invasive Species

Nonnative species in the Missouri River region result from direct and indirect actions by humans. Invasive nonnative species displace native species, degrading the integrity and diversity of native communities. Silver and bighead carp, zebra mussels, salt cedar, russian olive, canada thistle, leafy spurge, and phragmites all negatively impact this region.

Silt and Erosion

Prior to the construction of dams, sediment transportation along the Missouri was critical in maintaining the river’s form and dynamics. Once known as the “Big Muddy,” the sediment level traveling in the river has dramatically reduced, from roughly 142 million tons per year before 1950, to roughly 4 million. Land-use changes, inundation, channelization, and levee building have further removed nearly 3 million acres of natural riverine and floodplain habitat.

Climate Change

Rising global temperatures and changes in patterns of precipitation have affected the flow and habitat of the Missouri River. The Upper Missouri River Basin has reached its driest point in over 1,000 years. Lower water levels harm marine life and waterfowl, causing negative effects throughout the food chain. Flood maps have changed, causing habitat destruction as severe weather damages the region. Changes in the river’s flow have caused the aging cottonwood forests to disappear and threaten many rare species native to the region.

How You Can Help

Missouri River Conservation Districts Council

The Missouri River Conservation Districts Council engages in projects that directly improve natural resources and involve and educate the public.

Missouri River Relief

The Missouri River Relief is dedicated to connecting people to the river through hands-on river clean-ups, education events and stewardship activities.

Nature Conservancy

The Nature Conservancy works to catalyze a community-based conservation presence, focusing on the highly-altered reach from Yankton, SD to St. Louis, MO.

Sources:

Bill Lambrecht, Big Muddy Blues: True Tales and Twisted Politics Along Lewis and Clark's Missouri River (New York, NY: Macmillan Publishers, 2014), 3.

“Missouri River,” American Rivers, accessed Sept 12, 2022.

"The Missouri River and the Red River," State Historical Society of North Dakota.

Linda Baker et al.,"Demographics of the Fort Berthold Reservation," The History and Culture of the Mandan, Hidatsa, Sahnish (Arikara) (Bismarck, ND: North Dakota Department of Public Instruction, 2002), 48.

Eric Jay Dolin, Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America (New York: W.W. Norton, 2010), 303.

Bill Lambrecht, Big Muddy Blues: True Tales and Twisted Politics along Lewis and Clark's Missouri River (New York, NY: Thomas Dunne, 2005), 54.

Great Falls Montanta: River's Edge History Tour (State Historic Preservation Office, Montana Historical Society).

Bill Lambrecht, Big Muddy Blues: True Tales and Twisted Politics along Lewis and Clark's Missouri River (New York, NY: Thomas Dunne, 2005), 54.

"The last Carolina Parakeet," John James Audubon Center at Mill Grove, accessed July 15, 2022.

"Black Footed Ferret," Center for Biological Diversity.

“Least Tern (Interior Population),” USFWS: Least Tern, April 14, 2015.

James J. Dinsmore and Stephen J. Dinsmore, "Piping Plover and Least Tern

Populations and Habitat in Western Iowa," Department of Animal Ecology Iowa State University, 9 January 9, 1989.

National Research Council, The Missouri River Ecosystem: Exploring the Prospects for Recovery (Washington, D.C.: National Academy, 2002), 77-78.

Department of Water Resources, “Today’s Missouri River,” North Dakota Water Resources (Bismarck, ND: Department of Water Resources).

National Park Service, “Nonnative Species,” Missouri River, last updated Feb 4, 2020, accessed Sep 13, 2022.

“The Missouri River Ecosystem: Exploring the Prospects for Recovery,” National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2002).

“Indigenous Tribes of the Missouri River,” Jefferson College, last updated Jan 18, 2022.

"Dams, climate change threaten Missouri River cottonwood forests," Yale Climate Connections, June 23, 2022.

Darryl Fears, "America’s longest river was recently drier than during the Dust Bowl. And it’s bound to happen again," The Washington Post, May 11, 2020.

Tony Messenger, “Pied Piper of Failed River Policies Saw This Flood Coming,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, December 31, 2015.

Alan J. Bartels and Matthew Spencer, "The Great Flood of 2011," Nebraska Life Magazine.