The Mississippi River is experiencing flooding surpassing levels experienced in 1927. In the year of that flood, the River rose to 56.6 feet in Natchez, Mississippi. The National Weather Service is predicting the River will rise to 60 feet next month.
The flooding was so severe in 1927 that the following year the first comprehensive flood control plan in the United States was enacted. This plan included the buidling of levees up and down the River to control floodwaters.
Today, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is considering blowing one of those levees up. If they blow the levee up, 130,000 acres of Missouri farmland will be flooded.
This begs the question: what about wetlands?
Wetlands are a natural way to control floodwaters by acting as a giant sponge, while increasing and protecting native plants and animals. Flooding in 1993 caused an estimated $16 billion in damages. Scientists estimate that return ing unused farmlands in the Upper Mississippi basin to their original form – wetlands – would significantly reduce flooding.
Wetlands can also help pay farmers. The Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) pays farmers by acrage of wetlands protected. The WRP, part of the Farm Bill, is facing possible cuts this year. What, today, could be more relevant to the lives of people living along the Mississippi River’s banks?
To read more about the floods, click here.