Illinois receives significantly less funding compared to neighboring states for conservation initiatives like the Environmental Qualities Incentive Program and Conservation Stewardship Program.

Max Webster, Midwest Policy Manager for American Farmland Trust tells  Brownfield from 2009-2019 compared to Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota and Missouri…

“Illinois received 15-51% less funding than every other upper Mississippi River state and over that 10-year period those funding disparities end up to in some cases hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Webster says those disparities are significant since some of the largest sources of nutrient runoff into the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico come from Illinois waterways and current funding from these programs is not enough to correct the losses.

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