Posts Tagged ‘MS River Flooding’

There is a flood arms race.  It could end in disaster.  It’s between the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Mississippi River.

What would happen if the Mississippi River changed its coarse to the Atchafalaya? Dr. Xu’s poster gives an in-depth look at the MS River’s history, likelihood of a coarse change and the consequences.

Have flood control projects actually made flooding worse?  Yes.  Floods are higher, longer, and more frequent than ever.  Despite the Corps’ Mississippi Rivers and Tributaries Project authorized in 1928.  Which the Corps says has prevented a trillion dollars of flood damage from levee failures that haven’t happened.

So you want to bet against the Mississippi River?

That’s the subject of a recent article in The Advocate of Baton Rouge and also a similar recent article in The Times Picayune of New Orleans.  It’s also something we have been talking about and testifying about before the Mississippi River Commission for the last two years.

Its tomb was sealed over in 2012 when the Fifth Circuit upheld the District Court decision against the Mississippi Levee Board’s challenge to the EPA ruling.  But a bony hand is emerging from the tomb.

Storms are random natural events.  The consequences may be aggravated or mitigated by intentional acts of man.

Elam, of course, didn’t know the Corps would restrict the flow.  But he could have predicted the result.  The river would back up, rise, flood the batture, and cause backwater floods on the Yazoo and other tributaries.