Open Writing

Being the vast continent that it is, America has its fair share of natural features: mountains, deserts, massive lakes, and rivers. Most of them aren’t difficult for humans to live with; in fact most are highly valued. The great rivers are, however, a mixed blessing.

The Rocky Mountains provide a monumental, back-drop, and their winter snow-pack stores summer water supplies. The plains states that stretch from the Rio Grande at the U.S.-Mexico border in the south to the Mackenzie River Delta along the Arctic Ocean in the north, are literally the breadbasket of the world. The deserts provide a welcome scenic contrast.

In the early development of the USA, the rivers were the best means of penetrating the vast wilderness, and later were the conduits for shipping supplies to the interior. Many of the later railroads followed the river valleys. The rivers carried alluvial silt that, when deposited, formed some of the most fertile, valuable farmland in the country. They were therefore a magnet for settlement and population growth.

Unfortunately, many of the largest rivers flow through country that is as flat as a pool table. The aptly named Flat River that flows through Michigan State, has been described as a mile wide and six inches deep. Rivers that meander through the flatlands make their own course, and in the spring floods, often wander off in new directions.

Towns and farmland are overwhelmed, with the concomitant loss of property and crops, but the inhabitants are not deterred – they clean up, rebuild and start over. To the rest of us this seems like stubborn stupidity, but for those families who settled the areas generations ago, there’s no logical alternative, and the farmland is no less valuable for its inundation.

America’s early settlement by immigrants was largely agrarian and the associated trades and suppliers. The people were naturally attracted to the coastal regions, particularly the eastern seaboard, due to the existence of established ports, and the relatively proximity to the lands of their origin.

In a massive program of social engineering, the United States Land Office embarked on a plan to attract settlers to the interior, that involved the sale of land at give-away prices, sometimes for as little as a dollar an acre, under the terms of the Homestead Act. Enormous tracts of land were distributed on a first come, first served basis, or by auction, or by the, so-called “Land Run,” where prospective land owners literally raced to stake their claim.

Critical to the success of this program was the availability of plentiful water supplies. Some of the regions were in arid high plains country, where irrigation was essential. The solution was seen to be the diversion and damming of rivers.

In one such disastrous undertaking the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation embarked on the “Newlands project” in 1903. This involved diverting the Carson and Truckee rivers in West Nevada and California, and the building of the Lahontan Dam, which was completed in 1915, to produce electricity for the project.

The result of all this turmoil was the destruction of hundreds of miles of watershed habitat, the annihilation of some species, and the reduction of water flow to a trickle through the cities of Reno and Truckee. Worst of all, the anticipated increase in population settlement never happened. All these years later, work is underway to restore the rivers to their original course!

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which dates from 1802, has been largely responsible for all massive public works undertakings since its formation. In 1824, the Corps was assigned to survey routes for roads and canals. In the same year it was authorized to dredge and make other navigation “improvements” on the nation's waterways. This was the origin of the Corps' responsibilities in river and harbor improvements. It speaks volumes about the scope of their work that a Corps of Topographical Engineers was incorporated in 1838.

I some ways it is a strange organization, in that its 34,000 personnel includes a majority of civilians, despite its name. It has a checkered history, with a mixture of successes and spectacular failures. Overall, it seems that the Corps cannot accept that Mother Nature will generally have the last say. They never met a river they didn’t think they could improve.

Probably their most grievous failure is the Mississippi and Delta levee system that was designed to protect farming communities and cities like New Orleans, and failed miserably, most recently during Hurricane Katrina, and to a lesser extent in the spring floods of 2011.

There’s a temptation to lay the blame on extreme weather, but closer examination shows that the levees were poorly conceived and inadequately implemented. Channeling the waters has also destroyed wetlands in the Delta that are important in reducing the destructive power of tidal surges from the Gulf of Mexico that often accompany hurricanes.

The Corps is busy these days reviewing past projects in the light of experience and the new awareness of the importance of habitat preservation. Some existing works are being undone, and the land restored to its natural state. Needless to say, such rethinking has its opponents too. Water, or the lack of it, is an extremely emotional issue, but ways must be found to accommodate both camps.

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