- Jun 6, 2007
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The Army Corp of Engineers blasted an opening in a levee along the Mississippi River in Missouri to protect the city of Cairo Illinois in the last twwenty-four hours; however, in doing so they flooded one-hundred and thirty thousand acres of rich farm land. This cost shouldn't sit well with the American people there is currently a grain commodity supply shortage in the nation and in the world, America desperately needed the crop production from these 130,000 acres this year! One can't really fault the senior official at the Army Corp of Engineers that ordered the blowing of the levee because the water level was one foot from the top of the levee protecting the city of Cairo.
The American people can fault the government system that exists that would bring about such a costly solution to protecting a small city. Obviously, there is a need to build bigger and stronger levees along the Mississippi river to protect against the flood season but how about creating a system of many release outlets along the Missippi River to protect against flooding something more that the current creation of having flood plains where homes and farm land are sacrificed to prevent greater harms but create channels off the Missippi to move the water to reservoirs and lakes existing and new ones. For that matter, why can't a system be devised where the width of the Missippi river is expanded during the flood season so that the speed of the river is accellerated and the water level against the levees doesn't rise so fast, of course this would cause a trade-off as more undesirable substances would be carried into coastal estuaries however especially over the long-term maybe the harm would be negligable, the nation should be able to do better here!
The American people can fault the government system that exists that would bring about such a costly solution to protecting a small city. Obviously, there is a need to build bigger and stronger levees along the Mississippi river to protect against the flood season but how about creating a system of many release outlets along the Missippi River to protect against flooding something more that the current creation of having flood plains where homes and farm land are sacrificed to prevent greater harms but create channels off the Missippi to move the water to reservoirs and lakes existing and new ones. For that matter, why can't a system be devised where the width of the Missippi river is expanded during the flood season so that the speed of the river is accellerated and the water level against the levees doesn't rise so fast, of course this would cause a trade-off as more undesirable substances would be carried into coastal estuaries however especially over the long-term maybe the harm would be negligable, the nation should be able to do better here!