<p>+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />|  The Intentional Flooding of America's Heartland<br />|   from the best-laid-dams  dept.<br />|   posted by timothy on Sunday June 26, @08:24 (Earth)<br />|   <a href="https://science.slashdot.org/story/11/06/26/0539215/The-Intentional-Flooding-of-Americas-Heartland?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email">https://science.slashdot.org/story/11/06/26/0539215/The-Intentional-Flooding-of-Americas-Heartland?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email</a><br />+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />[0]Hugh  Pickens writes "Joe Herring writes that sixty years ago, the U.S.<br />Army Corps  of Engineers began the process of taming the Missouri by<br />constructing massive  dams at the top to moderate flow to the smaller dams<br />below, generating  electricity while providing desperately needed control<br />of the river's  devastating floods. But after about thirty years of<br />operation, as the  environmentalist movement gained strength throughout<br />the seventies and  eighties, the Corps received a great deal of pressure<br />to include specific  environmental concerns into their Master Water<br />Control Manual, the 'bible'  for the operation of the dam system, as<br />preservation of habitat for at-risk  bird and fish populations soon became<br />a hot issue among the burgeoning  environmental lobby. The Corps began to<br />utilize the dam system to mimic the  previous flow cycles of the original<br />river, [1]holding back large amounts of  water upstream during the winter<br />and early spring in order to release them  rapidly as a spring pulse.<br />'Whether warned or not, the fact remains that had  the Corps been true to<br />its original mission of flood control, the dams would  not have been full<br />in preparation for a spring pulse,' writes Herring. 'The  dams could<br />further have easily handled the additional runoff without the need  to<br />[2]inundate a sizable chunk of nine states.' The horrifying  consequence<br />is water rushing from the dams on the Missouri twice as fast as  the<br />highest previous releases on record while the levees that protect  the<br />cities and towns downstream were [3]constructed to handle the flow  rates<br />promised at the time of the dam's construction."<br /><br />Discuss this  story at:<br /> <a href="https://science.slashdot.org/story/11/06/26/0539215/The-Intentional-Flooding-of-Americas-Heartland?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email#commentlisting">https://science.slashdot.org/story/11/06/26/0539215/The-Intentional-Flooding-of-Americas-Heartland?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email#commentlisting</a><br /><br />Links:<br /> 0. <a href="http://poncacityweloveyou.com/">http://poncacityweloveyou.com/</a><br /> 1. <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/06/the_purposeful_flooding_of_americas_heartland.html">http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/06/the_purposeful_flooding_of_americas_heartland.html</a><br /> 2. <a href="http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=64396">http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=64396</a><br /> 3. <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/25/us-flooding-iowa-idUSTRE75O1WB20110625">http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/25/us-flooding-iowa-idUSTRE75O1WB20110625</a></p>