A support group and a lab in the St. Louis area provide resources for people with the allergy to mammal products — and evidence that its effects can be reversed.
St. Anthony Falls in Minneapolis is the only true waterfall on the Mississippi River. Credit: Sara Shipley Hiles, Ag & Water Desk
Our 11 new Ag & Water Desk reporters gathered together for the first time last week in Minneapolis, steps away from St. Anthony Falls, the only true waterfall on the Mississippi River.
I met them there at the Report for America’s national gathering of its corps members, journalists who serve in newsrooms across America, helping to fill news deserts with information needed for a healthy democracy.
It’s a joy to welcome these fresh faces. Our new reporters bring new states – North Dakota, Mississippi and Arkansas – to our team. We’re also adding television stations for the first time – two commercial stations owned by Gray Television in Davenport, Iowa, and St. Louis, and a public television station in Kansas City. Altogether now the Desk has reporters in 10 states – a healthy number, to be sure, but still just a third of the states in the basin.
The Mississippi River watershed is vast. I learned that portions of the upper river channel were carved by Ice Age flooding from the Glacial River Warren, which drained a humongous lake in what is now the upper central plains and Canada. The Mississippi River was more modest, by comparison.
Today, of course, we know the Mississippi as one of the mightiest rivers in the world. It’s a good reminder to take the long view. We’re planting seeds with our current crop of reporters we hope will grow into a strong media ecosystem over the years to come.
Talk soon,
Sara Shipley Hiles Executive Director
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