Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
MODERN MISSISSIPPI
Mark Twain would hardly recognize the river of his mind's eye, which saw bare-
footed boys mucking about in mudflats. During the Civil War, the river, in particular
La Crosse, Wisconsin, was invaluable to Union transportation networks (up to 1,000
boats per day traveled to/from La Crosse). Thereafter, river traffic for commercial
purposes soared.
Natural history changed big-time in 1930, with the first locks and dams built by
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Ten locks and dams form the western boundary of
Wisconsin between Prescott and Dubuque, Iowa. Instead of a free-flowing body of
water with a mind of its own, an ersatz mocha-colored chain of lakes, each 15-30
miles long, was formed above dam lines, with sloughs and tidepools below. The
sludgy backwater regions are amazing, swamplike groupings of lake and pond, up to
200 in a given 20-square-mile area.
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
As the waters were corralled and ebbed into sluggish lakes and pools, sediment
dropped and gradually squeezed out the riparian aquatic life. Factories and sewer
linesdischargedeffluentsdirectlyintotributaries,andagriculturalpesticidesandfer-
tilizer seeped in.
Now, biologists fret that the five-decades-old “lakes” are gradually exhausting
theirlivabilityandbecominginhospitabletoaquaticlife.Sedimentation—mostlydue
to agricultural runoff—remains a vexing part of the problem. More worrisome is
flooding. The dams may ensure commercial traffic year-round, but that's only for
the dry season. They do nothing to control flooding, and as the massive Midwestern
floods of the mid-1990s proved, dikes and levees have severe limitations. Americ-
an Rivers has put the Mississippi on its “endangered rivers” list. Environmentalists
have heard it before; the Corps of Engineers is one of the densest layers of bureau-
cracy and is often criticized. River lovers say the Wisconsin stretch of the Missis-
sippi, already the most dammed section of the whole river, should be allowed to re-
turn to its presettlement natural state by just ripping the locks out and shipping by
rail (which would be cheaper, by most estimates). Some backwater areas would be
allowed to dry out, preserving the ecosystem for the following floods.
