The Kinnickinnic River Project

This one's part of a series for students in Geography 564: Urban Environmental Change and Social Justice.

The Kinnickinnic River, sometimes called Milwaukee's "forgotten river," runs through a series of neighborhoods on Milwaukee's south side. The river has been altered and damaged by past contamination, as well as by concrete channels put in decades ago to control flooding, and it is currently the focus of a major restoration effort. The question: will this restoration effort address social and environmental justice issues along the river?

Here are a few sources to help you get started (there are clickable links in the first three bullet points):

- The KK River Project of UWM's Great Lakes Water Institute - a lot of useful material here, including links to other good web sites.

- The 16th Street Community Health Center is highly involved in this project, through its Department of Environmental Health. You should look around the web (and talk to them!) to find out more, but you might want to start with the KK River Action Plan.

- MMSD plays the lead role in the current reconstruction of the river. You'll find several relevant documents on its web site linked here.


- Don't forget to Google - e.g., kinnickinnic river environmental justice. (Try others! Don't just stop at that one.) There are several good sites and articles out there.