For generations, people have been sounding the alarm about Lake Pepin’s sedimentation. The alarm has been ringing for so long that a new concern is whether or not we are still hearing it. For too many, it is easy to shrug one’s shoulders at the muddy Minnesota River as it discolors the Mississippi River just upstream of Lake Pepin. “It’s been like that my entire life,” we’ve heard old-time river users say. But the fact is— time doesn’t make it right. If anything, it simply means that change is long overdue.