From Three Fish to Thriving: A Century of Progress
Before the Twin Cities rose, the river was Wakpa Tanka, the “Great River,” to the Dakota people, a place of immense spiritual and ecological abundance. With the arrival of European settlers, this sacred center was transformed into an engine of industry. The growing cities of Minneapolis, Saint Paul and the surrounding area needed a place to dispose of their human and industrial wastes. The Great River became a great sewer.
In 1926, a water quality study identified severe pollution and found only three fish living in the 42 miles of the Mississippi River from the Twin Cities to Red Wing, Minnesota. The results confirmed what scientists and residents already suspected: the Mississippi was effectively dead. The study sparked collective action to restore, and eventually protect, this vital waterway and improve the health of the river over the next one hundred years.
In 2026 the Sacred Water Shared Future campaign is honoring the central role the Mississippi River has played in our region while acknowledging its deep history, sacredness, and resilience. By bringing communities together through storytelling, education and conservation, our hope is that the campaign will inspire collaboration and shared action in 2026 and set the stage for the next 100 years of healing for both the river and the life it supports.
Podcast Appearances
Unboxed: The SRF Podcast
In this episode of Unboxed, we sit down with Cassie Champion (Metropolitan Council) and Abby Moore (Mississippi Watershed Management Organization) to discuss Sacred Water Shared Future. This regional campaign commemorates a century of restoration efforts on the Mississippi River in the Twin Cities.
In 1926, the river was so polluted that a survey found only three living fish in a 42-mile stretch. Today, we explore the engineering marvels, public policy shifts, and community stories that transformed an “ecological disaster” back into a thriving resource.
Watch on YouTube or Spotify or listen on Apple Podcasts.
Huellas Latinas
In this episode of the Huellas Latinas Podcast, we explore the powerful story of the Mississippi River in the Twin Cities — from ecological damage to recovery, and the shared responsibility to protect it for future generations.
We are joined by Casandra Champion, Principal Environmental Scientist at the Metropolitan Council Environmental Services, and Abby Moore, Outreach Program Manager at the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization. Both are part of the leadership team behind the Sacred Water Shared Future campaign.
Listen on Spotify.
Mississippi Valley Traveler with Dean Klinkenberg
A hundred years ago, the Mississippi River that ran through Minneapolis and Saint Paul was basically a dead river. Factories, people, and local governments dumped sewage and industrial waste into the river until it was a slimy, fetid mess incapable of supporting life. But by the 1930s, attitudes started to shift and the first steps were taken to reduce the flow of pollution into the river. In this episode, Abby Moore and Cassie Champion, two of the people involved with a campaign called Sacred Water Shared Future, describe how the Great River became the Great Sewer, then how local folks gradually cleaned it up and restored the river’s ability to support life and its status as something worthy of admiration.
They describe the goals behind Sacred Water Shared Future and who is involved, then we talk about the importance of sharing success stories, especially the ones that unfold across time. They share a few thoughts about how we can continue to build and maintain support for clean water initiatives and what other cities might be able to learn from the success of the Twin Cities. This is a fundamentally a good-news story, one that shows that regardless of how bad something might seem, a better future isn’t just a hope but something that can be achieved, even if it takes a while.
Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Historical Footage
Learn More
Delve deeper into the river’s history with these excellent resources:
Learning from the Dakota: Water and Place — Open Rivers Journal
River of History – A Historic Resources Study — U.S. National Park Service
The Corps, the Environment, and the Upper Mississippi River Basin — U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (PDF)
Biological Survey of the Upper Mississippi River, with Special Reference to Pollution — The original 1926 “three fish” study (PDF)