Fascinating, thanks. The amount of competing interests is compelling, as is the variety of industries that rely on the river being “this way” or “that way”.
I had no idea of the diversity of converging interests. I’ll have to email this to my Dad, who used to be the Deputy Chief of Engineers in the Corps up until his retirement in 1999.
That is a great article.
Possibly, but they do their work at the behest of Congress, and by proxy, the constituents of the people that live in, around and by the river and profit or subside in some way by its existence. They don’t operate in a vacuum.
Read the article Elvis1Lives posted.
I never said the Corps acted on their own, but the work they did, regardless of who ordered it, is largely responsible for ordinary floods becoming extraordinary. Instead of spreading the water out, they concentrated it and prevented it from entering the water table the way it used to.
John McPhee’s article describes it well.
If we didn’t Open The Floodgates every so often, people would forget the expression. 
You said they were “totally responsible”, which is incorrect.
Apparently, despite the spending of billions; one can’t.
To be fair, it’s cost-prohibitive to design for such extreme events; you end up with a bunch of expensive infrastructure which rarely gets used.
They are totally responsible for the construction of the river diversions, levees and spillways. No one else builds such works on that river.
And while the initiation of such actions may reside with political bodies, the actions recommended and eventually taken are the responsibility of the Corps. Congress may say “do something,” but it’s the Corps that decides what, how and where to do it. The ultimate responsibility lies with the Corps.
Sylvanus Thayer’s zombie is totally going to kick your ass.
That’s like saying the Army has the ultimate responsibility for the Iraqi invasion.
Are you saying that major intervention to save the River was a mistake? Or that the decision of Congress and the public to save the River was correct, but that a better-designed system was possible?
Anyway, a link given in another recent SDMB thread has nice diagrams (back to 15th century) and photos about the Old River Control Complex.
This situation has prompted me to dig out my copy of John M. Barry’s Rising Tide (“The great Mississippi flood of 1927 and how it changed America”). An excellent read, it includes info on the history of the river and how it got that way.
Don’t know if a better-designed system is possible, but it appears that the original idea of controlling the river has backfired and some of the solutions have unintended, and very bad, side effects.
Or, as Robbie Burns put it, “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley…”
backfired how? As far as I know, the flood control structures and plans have all worked pretty much as planned. I haven’t heard of any failures. Some levees have failed, but not federally constructed ones.
Certainly there is flooding, but that is part of the flood control plan. As others have said, it is not practical to design a system that prevents all flooding.
I am not a fan of the Corps and their designs. But they are very very good at what they do. Congress and the public funded these structures. If the public hadn’t made the decision to fund them, they would not have gotten built. I have been involved in grass-roots efforts to get flood control projects funded and built. The only thing the Corps contributes are the plans and the cost estimate. And the cost estimate is always higher than the boosters would like. The Corps does not low-ball projects! The Corps may have influenced public decisions, but their efforts are by no means a deciding factor.
Before the river was channeled, it found its own outlet. Much of the spring flow was absorbed into the floodplain instead of being sent to the ocean.
With more control, the river can no longer do these things. The levees must be made higher and higher since the flow is channeled into an ever-narrowing space, and the flow is faster, causing increasing erosion around structures. It cannot soak gradually into the water table like before. It cannot find the best route to the sea, but must go where the Corps forces it. It must be subject to increasing control because of the increasing control, and there is no end in sight.
If you doubt me, please read John McPhee’s excellent New Yorker article about the history of river control. With the river’s height greater than ever before even during non-flood times, most of New Orleans is below the waterline and the ships travel above it as they pass by.
A great article. I’m only halfway through, but intend to read it all.
Isn’t the land also subsiding?
The “plan” that failed was to develop major cities whose economy depended on a major River and port. If the “Corps of Engineers” were to “change its mind” now and let the Mississippi follow its “natural” course, the economic cost to Louisiana would dwarf that of the disasters which have occurred.
The discussion can lead to interesting questions about Man’s Arrogance, the power of Mother Nature, the fragility of civilization, etc. But viewed in a narrower context – preserving the economy of southern Louisiana (at least so far!) – it seems to me, despite my sympathies for Ludditism, that the Old Riiver Control Complex can be regarded as an engineering triumph.
This was impossible before the Corps?
I wrote plan in “quotes.” I thought (incorrectly?) everyone here knew that as New Orleans developed into a major city during the 19th century, the life history of the Mississippi River was not well understood.
I notice a tendency here at SDMB to take a straightforward statement, come up with the stupidest possible interpretation, and pretend that was what the poster intended. Is this a game? Does it belong in The Game Room ?