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[quote user="Datafever"][quote user="futuremodal"] Again, you leave out the greater environmental effect on the river, that of flood control projects, and try to blame those unintended consequences on navigation projects.  As I stated before, most of the river below Cairo has a natural depth beyond 9 feet, and dredging is done at certain points to make the depth consistent for navigation.  These perfunctory dredging projects had no effect on the problems you mention.  It was the desire for flood control by riverside interests that led to the unnatural raising of levees, which in turn raised the elevation of the river, which in turn forced leveels to be raised even higher, etc.  Turns out, flooding is a cyclical event, one that naturally rehabbed farmland by depositing those rich soils, and when they started "leveeing" everywhere, that natural cycle was shut down.  Too bad no one had figured out to leave the farmlands as is but put the farmhouse and barn on higher ground.That's one area where we probaby agree the USACE and riverside interests screwed up.  I have little sympathy for folks who build there houses and communities on natural flood plains.  But please, try to keep the two projects seperate when analyzing such effects, e.g. dredging for navigation is different from flood control projects - unless you're applying for a job at the AAR?[;)][/quote]I also agree that flood control projects have caused more damage (in general) than any subsequent good.  I lived in an area where flood control seemed like the best thing since sliced bread.  For about thirty years.  After that, the decline in agricultural yields became noticeable.  The long term costs outweighed any short term gains.  It's just that the short term gains were reaped by a different set of people than what suffered the long term loss.Futuremodal, it is my understanding that many of the flood control projects on the Mississippi were for the benefit of navigation.  It is difficult to navigate a barge down (or up) a rampaging river. [/quote]You know, I really didn't want this thread to become a pro vs con regarding Mississippi River navigation!I can tell you from local observation that tugs and barge tows do tackle rampaging river characteristics.  A few years back we had some major snow melt coupled with some major rain storms that turned the Snake River slack water pools into fast moving turbidity.  Going downstream was not that much of a problem for the barges (downstream fuel use was almost non-existant, just keep the consist between the navigation markers!), but coming upstream the barge captains had to max the tug's output with mostly empty barges and still only managed about 2 or 3 knots (7 to 10 knots is normal operating speed).As for flood control projects, my understanding is that the basics of such are the levees, which are meant to keep high water off low lying land, and not to enhance the river's channelization.  There are also some high water flowways, but these are not used for navigation.  Dredging the low bars to maintain a 12 foot deep channel is the main navigation aspect.  I don't think dredging is done for flood control.  I can say with most certainty that the flood control levees have made dredging needs more frequent, since much of what used to end up on lowlands during natural flooding episodes is now being deposited in river many times, right in the main navigation channels, and slowly raising the level of the riverbottom.
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