Posted by Matt from CT on May 16, 2011 at 19:47:41 from (173.125.143.84):
In Reply to: disposable farmers posted by old fashioned farmer on May 16, 2011 at 07:17:33:
You'd hurt a lot more farmers if you took the one action that would do more then anything else to reduce flooding today:
Plug all the tiles. Tell the drainage districts to fill in their ditches.
Let the soil act like a sponge and slowly release the rain waters.
Yes, there's some issues with city storm drains, but my bet is there is far more drained farmland then city streets. Just look at a satellite photo of the midwest.
Plugging the tiles will have big impacts -- later planting, roots that don't grow deep so crops are more susceptible to summer drought, etc. We'd need to clear more forest land, and spend more in fuel and fertilizer to make up production since our yields per acre would drop.
But hey, look! We're not opening up spillways as often!
When you talk about 100 year floods, I think the real question is whether the rainfall is increasing or just the floods are worsening. My money is on the simple answer -- our floods are worsening, the precipitation remains the same. We drain the land faster today then we used to.
Do I have empathy for the farmers in Missouri or Morganza? Sure. Sympathy? No more then I had for folks who lived in the 9th Ward of New Orleans below sea level. (The old section -- French Quarter -- is slightly above sea level and came through Katrina just fine; other areas like the 9th have always been below the water.)
The farmers in Missouri knew they farming in an area protected by levies. Common sense would say when you have a choice between buildings and cropland, you flood the farmland and the fewest buildings.
Down in Louisiana, those folks in the path of the Morganza spillway, for the most part, are only there because the spillway even exists. Between it and the Old River structure up river, the Mississippi is kept flowing towards to New Orleans -- by Congressional mandate. If it wasn't for the Army Corp levees, the main channel of the Mississippi would have already changed course and be flowing through the area the Morganza spillway dumps water into.
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