Mississippi River named the most endangered of 2025

By Madeline Heim, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and Delaney Dryfoos, The Lens

The Mississippi River ranks as the nation’s most endangered river as federal plans to cut flood relief programs meet with a rise in severe weather, a new report warns.

American Rivers, a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization, said the threats to the Mississippi River – which provides water for nearly 20 million people – come as communities along the lower river flooded from torrential rain in early April, and as Trump administration officials consider eliminating the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which helps state and local governments respond to disasters.

The list calls attention to the threats rivers face and prioritizes those for which the public can influence policies that affect their well-being, said Mike Sertle, senior director for American Rivers’ Central Region.

The Mississippi River has always flooded. While flooding threatens human structures, it is an important part of the Mississippi River’s life cycle and actually builds land. But experts say floods are growing more frequent, erratic and severe due to climate change. In 2019, the river’s most recent major flood, water stayed at or above flood stage for months and caused $20 billion in damage.

FEMA assists communities during floods and other types of disasters, provides funds for recovery and oversees preparedness efforts, like its flood maps that predict risks in different areas. And it’s doing so more often today. A January 2025 report to Congress found that the average number of major disaster declarations has increased by 61% from the 1980s and 1990s, partly due to climate change.

But it has faced broad criticism for not moving quickly enough after disasters and not helping disaster survivors equally. President Donald Trump has floated the idea of dismantling the agency, and in February the agency fired more than 200 of its staffers as part of Trump’s push to shrink the size and scope of the federal government. The White House did not comment on the American Rivers’ report’s criticism of these actions.

FEMA is especially important for coordinating flooding responses along the Mississippi River because it touches so many states on its journey to the Gulf, said Kelly McGinnis, executive director of the environmental advocacy group One Mississippi. Cuts to other federally funded flood management agencies will likely impact the Mississippi River as well, the American Rivers report noted.

In March, a stopgap bill to fund the federal government through Sept. 30 slashed $1.4 billion from the Army Corps of Engineers’ construction budget, which funds hurricane and flood mitigation projects. With budget losses to both FEMA and the Army Corps, grant programs to address riverine flooding could be impacted substantially. According to FEMA, every federal dollar spent on flood mitigation yields $7 in benefits.

The American Rivers’ report comes as states along the lower Mississippi are experiencing and bracing for flooding from heavy rains upriver. Vicksburg, Mississippi officials are reinforcing flood walls as they wait for water to arrive. In Louisiana, the Army Corps is patrolling New Orleans levees for problems. On Monday, the new Bayou Chene floodgate was closed for the first time due to high water to protect several parishes from backwater flooding as the Atchafalaya River continues to rise.

The Mississippi has made the endangered rivers list in the recent past for other problems. In 2022, the entire river appeared on the list because of pollution and habitat loss, and in 2020, threats from climate change and development landed the upper Mississippi at number one.

The river’s continued appearances on the list show that there isn’t enough progress being made on its biggest challenges, said Kelly McGinnis, executive director of the environmental advocacy group One Mississippi.

The American Rivers report notes that half of the rivers in the US have unsafe levels of pollution, threatening drinking water. “Freshwater species are going extinct faster than ocean or land species, and rivers are among the most threatened ecosystems on the planet,” the report states.

This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation. The Nature Conservancy and American Rivers also receive Walton funding.

(Featured photo of  the Mississippi River flooding around a highway outside Memphis, Tennessee in 2016. Photo by Andrew Breig, Daily Memphian.)