Photo: Mark Hirsch
How much responsibility do humans have for the floods disastrously deluging the Midwest? Of course the rain poured for days, but it fell on plowed-up prairies, drained fields, altered streams, no-longer-wetlands, and developed flood plains -- all unable to absorb precipitation to the best of their natural ability. Between 2007 and 2008, more than 160,000 acres of Iowa land (mostly covered with deep-rooted, water-absorbing grasses) was taken out of a federal conservation-reserve program to be farmed (mostly for corn). Near St. Louis, Mo., nearly 30,000 homes have been built on land that was submerged by flooding in 1993; despite taller, stronger levees -- which some say are part of the problem, not the solution -- the area may very well be swamped again as floodwaters roll south. "Cities routinely build in the flood plain," says Kamyar Enshayan, a city councilmember in Cedar Falls, Iowa. "That's not an act of God; that's an act of City Council."
source: The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal
see also, in Grist:As corn and soy fields drown in rainwater, the food crisis deepens
see also, in Gristmill: As Midwest floods recede, what’s being washed into the groundwater?
see also, in Grist:A special series on the Army Corps and the Mississippi River
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Comments
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Wolverine Posted 4:49 am
19 Jun 2008
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rpasichnyk Posted 9:26 am
19 Jun 2008
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amazingdrx Posted 12:55 pm
19 Jun 2008
Put flood gates in the sides of the rivers, instead of damns, then let overflow go into resevior/wetlands. Keep the levies that protect cities and drain the water away from them with this wetland restoration.
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