Time to Move the Mississippi, Experts Say

[Judi Lynn]

Time to Move the Mississippi, Experts Say
By CORNELIA DEAN
Published: September 19, 2006

Scientists have long said the only way to restore Louisiana’s vanishing wetlands is to undo the elaborate levee system that controls the Mississippi River, not with the small projects that have been tried here and there, but with a massive diversion that would send the muddy river flooding wholesale into the state’s sediment-starved marshes.

And most of them have long dismissed the idea as impractical, unaffordable and lethal to the region’s economy. Now, they are reconsidering. In fact, when a group of researchers convened last April to consider the fate of the Louisiana coast, their recommendation was unanimous: divert the river.

Far from rejecting the idea, state officials have embraced it, motivated not just by the lessons of Hurricane Katrina but also by growing fears that global climate change will bring rising seas, accelerating land loss and worse weather.

“A major diversion in the lower part of the river is something that needs to be done,” said James R. Hanchey, deputy secretary of the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources. He said the state was convening a planning meeting on the idea this fall. The diversion would be well downstream of New Orleans, in the bird-foot delta at the river’s mouth. Even so, there would be tremendous engineering challenges, particularly in finding a new way for freighters to make their way into the Mississippi’s shipping channel, said Mr. Hanchey, who took his job after retiring as director of engineering and technical services for the Mississippi Valley division of the Army Corps of Engineers. But he added, “I think it’s within the realm of possibility.”
(snip/...)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/19/science/19rive.html?ref=us

[gulfcoastliberal]

1. Ihope Lousiana stops delaying this program and implements it ASAP.

It's been feasible for years - but spending money to preserve someof the most ecologically rich wetlands didn'tmatter as much as catering to oil.

[barb162]

21. Ecologically , it's the only thing to do

[LiberalFighter]

38. I don't see it happening without federal funds...

without it Louisiana can't do it.

[DavidDvorkin]

2. My wife's grandfather was involved in the design of the levee system

He was a civil engineer from Greenville, Mississippi and earlier worked on the Panama Canal.

In his day, the levee system was considered a great advance and a benefit to mankind. He wrote a book about his experiences, titled Speeding Floods to the Sea - a great title, I've always thought.

How times and attitudes change! It's worth remembering, though, that the original work was done with fine intentions and was highly regarded at the time.

[gkdmaths]

3. Damn, get ready for some upstream flooding.

You cannot move a river without significant ramifications.

[Porcupine]

4. The river was there first. Louisiana came afterward.

I say free the river from it's chains and let it meander. I remember an article in National Geographic some years back that detailed how the river could desert Louisiana entirely and go wandering off towards Texas at some point.

Eventually the river is going to win.

[Earth_First]

7. I agree.

I only see more disastrous results from trying to forcefully influence what Mother Earth does naturally on her own. When will we learn?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

18. Yeah

The Hoover Dam was such a bad idea...

:sarcasm:

[pitohui]

30. if you don't know what you're talking about, stop talking

virtually all major cities are on rivers and therefore would be subject to annual flooding if not for humanity's controls, rivers are the arteries of our transportation system from the dawn of civilization

on her own, mother nature wanted you to be a parent at 13 and dead and out of the way at 40, without technology, you would be a very old person in poor health with bad teeth at a very young age

and our cities would be like ancient cairo, flooded every spring, not just new orleans but all of them (well, okay, not vegas)

flood control is part of what it means to be a human being and is one of our earliest skills

why is it nature when practiced by the beaver but evidence of hubris when done by the human?

sheesh

people who have nothing more helpful to offer except to give up and let nature have her way, why do they post? there is no good done that comes from spreading defeatism and negativity, the tiny moment of ego satisfaction from wallowing in "oh woe, the world is too big and we're helpless to change things" can't be worth the harm you do by spreading negative defeatism

this proposal may or may not be of merit, but discuss it on its merits

don't give me religious crap-ola about mother nature and when will "we" learn -- if the lesson "we" are to learn is to be defeatist losers afraid of a bold vision of progress, i hope to god "we" never learn such

[davidinalameda]

33. do beavers attempt to change the course of nature when they dam a creek

like man does?

we insist on living in areas that were never meant for human habitation like flood plains, deserts, etc

blow the dams!

[Odin2005]

36. Exactly. I'm sick of this primitivist crap that sees taking control of...

...nature (or "non-human nature" to use a term used by a famous historian to remind people that we are a part of nature, we are a force of nature) a bad thing. You primitivists should go live as hunter-gatherers if you hate modifying the enviroment so much.

[LiberalFighter]

39. You are right and you are wrong.

There are some things that improve the land and others that cause more harm.

All the concrete and blacktop for roads, parking lots. All the construction that takes away trees, marshes, and other parts of nature. The result is erosion by mother nature and sun's heat absorbed by man-made materials increasing global warming.

Where would we be without the Hoover Dam, TVA, Panama Canal, Great Lakes locks and other man-made creations at this point in time?

[pitohui]

31. i have an idea

free the river from all controls in your town first and show us how

or, if you live in some town so small and so removed from major transportation arteries like rivers that you know not of what you speak, then i say stand down and do not suggest the destruction of other people's homes and livelihoods and cities and towns

civilization from its earliest days has required the monitoring and control of rivers, which otherwise would flood the major cities and ports virtually every spring

even a beaver can build a dam, there is no point in having brains and abilities that we refuse to use to change our habitat to something better

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Nostradammit]

6. What's a costal city?

Is that the singular of pentacostal?

[Lars39]

9. ~

:spray:

[Lochloosa]

8. New Orleans was founded in 1718 and was/is a major port city.

The dikes and levee system caused the city to sink.

[LiberalFighter]

40. Sanitize all the garbage from NJ & NY and use it to build up LA

[Gman]

10. Whatever the hell that is supposed to mean

Do you have any idea at all the date the city of New Orleans was founded? Do you have any idea of the engineering studies that went into the decision to found New Orleans where it was founded? Any??

Demonstrated complete and total ignorance of a subject is not a very good trait to bring to DU. You better know what you're talking about if you're going to post here.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[alarimer]

13. So we just desert a major US city

that happens to have unique cultural values and traditions? If the river had not been channelized and the wetlands had been intact, the damage would have been much less than it was. Wetlands (which have been destroyed by human activity- mainly oil exploration) act as a buffer against storm surge. Of course they provide a lot of other services as well, such as filtering water. We would not have a huge dead zone in the Gulf if the Mississippi river delta was intact.

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Gman]

17. Game, set ,

match!

[Tesha]

19. Get used to this idea.

> So we just desert a major US city that happens to have unique
> cultural values and traditions?

Get used to this idea.

Odds are, we'll be doing a lot of this over the next century or so.

NOLA is just the first to go. :(

Tesha

[LiberalFighter]

41. Even without unique cultural values and tradition...

New Orleans IS critical to the economy of this country. It is my understanding that it has one of the deepest ports in the US and necessary.

[Shakespeare]

25. Why, aren't YOU a charming newbie!

Making friends already, I see. :eyes:

Hint: there's a way to discuss your point without being nasty about it. Maybe you should give it a try.

[mopinko]

16. do you know any history?

most really old cities are cities because they were built when they had boats instead of trucks. most are in some danger from rising sea levels. just not rebuilding is not an option. if you want to talk about rebuilding on a higher plane, and getting everybody and everything about the old nola to come there, that is a different story than- don't fucking build below sea level. sorry, but when i read a comment like that, i can't help hearing a little bit of "let them niggers sink or swim."
my opinion about nola is- stop fucking destroying the planet.

[RangerSmith]

11. If they want that land to be around in 50yrs

they need to reverse what they've done in the last 50yrs.

[pinerow]

15. Why aren't there any Dutch engineers on this project...?

They know a thing or two about keeping the water away from the cities...

[Tesha]

20. They may also know which wars are unwinnable. (NT)

[mtnester]

22. I have just a few words...

man plans...God laughs

Maybe we ought to watch what shakes with the Yangzee and the Three Rivers Gorge for awhile....see how that goes.

[The2ndWheel]

23. The problem is that we keep screwing with nature

But we're not going to stop now, so why give a shit?

[Odin2005]

37. Man has been "screwing with nature" since the dawn of time.

Hunter-gatherers burn grasslands to encourage the growth of grasses eaten by big game, you primitivists must be against that, too. Man is a part of nature, our actions make us a force of nature.

[GeorgeGist]

24. Well was I surprised...

I read the headline as:

Time to Move to Mississippi, Experts Say

[Up2Late]

26. What really pisses me off about this is the continue to LIE about how much

...land has already been lost! This graphic that shows the "possible" land losses between now and 2050!

Most of this land HAS BEEN Lost, NOW!

NOT 40 years from now, IT'S ALREADY GONE! Proof below!

When was the last time any of these people looked at a current NASA satellite photo? 1980?

If you want to see what is REALLY still there, check out these NASA MODIS satellite pictures (links below graphic) from September 4, 2006.



If you click on the photos linked below, check out the Infrared photos (721) in which the plant matter shows up as green or bright green and the Gulf waters, lakes and rivers show up as Black or dark Blue!

Notice, ALL of the Louisiana coastal islands are GONE, except for a tiny bit of the largest of the Chandeleur Islands, which is now a very soggy mess, barely above water, and the "bird foot" of the Delta is basically JUST the man-made levees, the rest is just gone. Ivan (2004) wiped out most of this part of the coast and Katrina finished the rest off in 2005.

Note: These are LARGE picture files, you will get the best view if you click on the Pixel size: 250m, but it is the largest of the photos and will take the longest to load. I think the Aqua photo (on the bottom) is better than the Terra photo.

The linked Thumbnails below take you to the NASA page, were you'll find the actual links.

MODIS Terra
721

Pixel size:
2km | 1km | 500m | 250m

MODIS Aqua
721

Pixel size:
2km | 1km | 500m | 250m

<http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?USA7/2006247>

[mcscajun]

27. It's not so much "diverting" the river, as letting the river go where it

wants, and has wanted to go, for over the last 40+ years.

The entire management of the Mississippi for decades has been about keeping it in its path, when rivers, especially large rivers, want to make their own paths. This one, the Mississippi, wants to join the Atchafalaya, and has wanted to do so since the 1950s. I recall reading a detailed article on this in the NY Times Sunday Magazine in the early to mid-70s. Wish I could find it now but I can't, so this excerpt from Wikipedia will have to suffice:

U.S. government scientists determined in the 1950s that the Mississippi River was starting to switch to the Atchafalaya River channel due to its much steeper path to the Gulf of Mexico, and eventually the Atchafalaya River would capture the Mississippi River and become its main channel to the Gulf of Mexico. As a result, the U.S. Congress authorized a project called the Old River Control Structure, which has prevented the Mississippi River from leaving its current channel that drains into the Gulf via New Orleans. Due to the large scale of high energy water flow through the Old River Control Structure threatening to damage the structure, an auxiliary flow control station was built adjacent to the standing control station. This 300 Million USD project was completed in 1996, by the Army Corp Of Engineers.

You can't fool (with) Mother Nature forever; she has this particularly violent way of getting even.

[fishwax]

34. Here's one good, detailed article about it

Your comments reminded me of this article by John McPhee. It was originally published in the New Yorker in 1987, btu I read it as a chapter in his book. It's very informative.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/content/?050912fr_archive01

[mcscajun]

35. Thanks for posting this one; it's an important part of any discussion

about the Mississippi River.

Even though it's quoting a 1980 study, this is the same point made in the 1970's article, and again in the New Yorker article, that's so relevant:

In 1980, for example, a study published by the Water Resources Research Institute, at Louisiana State University, described Old River as “the scene of a direct confrontation between the United States Government and the Mississippi River,” and — all constructions of the Corps notwithstanding — awarded the victory to the Mississippi River. “Just when this will occur cannot be predicted,” the report concluded. “It could happen next year, during the next decade, or sometime in the next thirty or forty years. But the final outcome is simply a matter of time and it is only prudent to prepare for it.”

You Can Fool (with) Mother Nature, just not for very long.

[SoCalDem]

28. Army Corps of Engineers has done a fine job so far, right?? right?? right

so they'll just do it again..only bigger :sarcasm:

perhaps they need to remove all the artificial stuff first, move people out, and let the river settle in where it "wants to be"..and THEN tweak it here and there..

[pinerow]

29. I read that wrong...I thought it said...

Time to MOVE to Mississippi...:wtf:

[pitohui]

32. well they need to build some durn houses in mississippi first

visited again this weekend, the housing situation is beyond belief the lack of progress that has been made