The Minnesota River has tied the soul of southern Minnesota communities together in many ways for hundreds of years, but it has only been in the last two decades that we have been more vigilant stewards of its health.

The Free Press will document the progress of that stewardship in a 12-day series of stories beginning today. Free Press Staff Writer Tim Krohn and photographer John Cross will be putting in their canoe at the start of the river near the South Dakota border today, and will chronicle the river and its connections to the communities along the way for the next two weeks. They will also compare what they see and study on this trip with experiences they gathered on a similar trip taken 10 years ago.

Today’s report shows that some progress has been made on river cleanup over the last decade. The political push needed to unearth federal and state cleanup funds was initiated by Gov. Arne Carlson who, in 1992, stood on the banks of the Minnesota at Mankato and unveiled a plan to clean up the river in a decade. While much progress has been made, more needs to be done.

The federal government spent $200 million putting 100,000 acres of sensitive land along the river into grasses to prevent erosion. That may be the biggest conservation effort to any watershed in Minnesota and certainly was a big part of the efforts to clean up the river.

With state incentives and good city planning, many of the cities along the river have upgraded their sewage treatment systems. In Mankato, a unique government/industry partnership created a treatment system where wastewater being dumped into the river was above state and federal standards.

People are working together more to clean up the river. In 2005, a river summit held in New Ulm helped give birth to the Minnesota River Watershed Alliance, a group that encourages landowners along the river to get involved in river cleanup projects.

Experts who have monitored the river’s development see more people connected to the river, more people caring about the river. It’s a tremendous asset to those cities located along it, says Ben Leonard of the Nicollet County Historical Society. He sees it as a way for river towns to be unique as they embrace the river with parks, walkways and bike trails.

The story of the Minnesota River has evolved over thousands of years from the glaciers that formed it to the revival of its use as a recreational amenity today. We can help write future chapters by making sure we do as much as possible to maintain and improve the health of Minnesota’s namesake river.