The Intentional Flooding of America's Heartland 477
Hugh Pickens writes "Joe Herring writes that sixty years ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began the process of taming the Missouri by constructing massive dams at the top to moderate flow to the smaller dams below, generating electricity while providing desperately needed control of the river's devastating floods. But after about thirty years of operation, as the environmentalist movement gained strength throughout the seventies and eighties, the Corps received a great deal of pressure to include specific environmental concerns into their Master Water Control Manual, the 'bible' for the operation of the dam system, as preservation of habitat for at-risk bird and fish populations soon became a hot issue among the burgeoning environmental lobby. The Corps began to utilize the dam system to mimic the previous flow cycles of the original river, holding back large amounts of water upstream during the winter and early spring in order to release them rapidly as a spring pulse. 'Whether warned or not, the fact remains that had the Corps been true to its original mission of flood control, the dams would not have been full in preparation for a spring pulse,' writes Herring. 'The dams could further have easily handled the additional runoff without the need to inundate a sizable chunk of nine states.' The horrifying consequence is water rushing from the dams on the Missouri twice as fast as the highest previous releases on record while the levees that protect the cities and towns downstream were constructed to handle the flow rates promised at the time of the dam's construction."
Well, You're dammed if you do... (Score:3, Insightful)
And you're dammed if you don't.
Blaming environmentalists? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sen. Blunt characterized the current flooding as "entirely preventable" and told reporters that he intends to force changes to the plan.
Given the volume of water the Corps is trying to manage, that statement is unbelievable hogwash. Ignorance that goes far beyond the people who try to argue "intelligent design" has a scientific basis. It reminds me of the attempts to blame poor neighborhoods for the mortgage crisis, even though the overall default rate in poor, minority neighborhoods was lower than upper-middle class white neighborhoods.
Couldn't have anything to do with snow pack and rainfall being over double the norm, it's got to be those dang environmentalists.
Using natural and man-made disasters to demigod your political opposition. We really have turned into a pathetic bunch. This tripe doesn't belong on Slashdot.
Re: (Score:3)
Whether intentional or not I really like the use of demigod there (demagogue).
Re:Blaming environmentalists? (Score:4, Informative)
So his credentials are that he is a "Constitutional Conservative". No civil engineering or technology background? Did he ever work in water management? I did find books on Amazon on wildlife management by Joe Herring from 1962, so that info is about 50 years out of date. It's not clear if this is the same guy. As far as we know, he has absolutely no meaningful qualifications.
So this is an opinion piece based on political ideology, not facts. I have observed that when died in the wool conservatives make arguments about technical subjects, they are completely fact free. Why do they need facts, when their political philosophy tells them that their uninformed opinion is God's absolute truth?
This flood has similar characteristics to large wildfires. We know that there are "natural disasters" that overwhelm any attempt at human control.We also know that human intervention can make these events worse. "Protecting" forests by suppressing natural fires makes larger more destructive fires inevitable. Farming and flood control alter the landscape, and certainly have an impact on these large rare events.
I'm not familiar with flooding, so I can't comment on the impact of human intervention on this disaster. I do know that Herring says nothing about the issue, but is using this as a cynical opportunity to blame environmentalists (i.e. damn hippies). His piece is political propaganda masquerading as a rational critique. It's reasonable to have this on Slashdot, but don't pretend that it's objective or has any factual contents.
Re: (Score:2)
both, mainly the ACE, who modified the use of the dams+levees system, in a way that is incompatible with its design.
Re:Blaming environmentalists? (Score:5, Insightful)
The authors premise is that had the ACE not abided by various environmentalists requests to mimic the natural flow of the river, then they would have been ready for this huge influx of water.
And if they don't mimic the natural flow, then the environment around the river changes, and deer come in and eat people's yards, and invasive plants take hold, and native fish disappear so you can't fish anymore, and the same idiots who scream about this would scream about that.
You can't cure stupidity.
Re:Blaming environmentalists? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
I used to work with the Corps and I can tell you if there was anything that could have been done, they were doing it. They are constantly checking snow melt, rainfall, ground saturation, flow levels and modeling flooding so they know where to send sandbag crews. The Corps can get waivers from environmental policies if they feel it's justified. No one, in any government agency, is going to let a human city flood to meet environmental regulations. Not unless there were public meetings and posters, TV comm
American Thinker seems to have an agenda (Score:3, Interesting)
I've read several articles from this site forwarded by a friend. The articles were biased, used slippery slope logic, etc.
Now they are leveraging slashdot to boost their Google ranking.
Editor, please?
Re:American Thinker seems to have an agenda (Score:5, Funny)
Editor, please?
Yes, an Editor would be a nice addition to the site.
Flood plain (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't want to get flooded don't live on a fucking flood plain.
Systems built around "average" rainfall will fail eventually because the climate is NOT stable on a year to year basis. You either build levees and dams for a once in a thousand years worst case scenario or you accept you will get the occasional massive flood that overwhelms systems built around "average" rainfall.
What actually happens is the dams and levees get built to handle the last major flood. That plan failed in Queensland Australia at the beginning of this year.
People need to accept that they don't have absolute control over their lives. Nature happens.
Re:Flood plain (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't want to get flooded don't live on a fucking flood plain.
I'd like to add the following advice for Americans who are trying to figure out where they should live in order to avoid disasters and dangerous environments:
Don't live near any of the many active volcanos, since they may erupt violently and unexpectedly.
Don't live near Yellowstone National Park, the San Andreas Fault, or anywhere else that's even remotely close, since "The Big One" could come any day.
Don't live near any form of major geologic activity, in fact, since it may do something.
Don't live in the southwest or Texas, since the heat easily gets over 100F on a regular basis, sometimes much higher.
Don't live north of the Mason-Dixon line or in the Rockies, since you may face blizzards, snowstorms, or other wintry conditions.
Don't live in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, or Hawaii, since you may get tsunamis.
Don't live within 100 miles of the Atlantic, Pacific, or Gulf coasts, since you may have hurricanes.
Don't live anywhere in the central U.S., since it's predisposed towards tornados.
Don't live near a river, bayou, swamp, lake, creek, wetland, canal, bay, marsh reservoir, estuary, or any other form of water, since it may flood.
Don't live near any major cities, since they are targets for attack and house industrial facilities that may explode.
Don't live far away from major cities, since the commute will contribute to global warming which may kill our children's children.
Don't like in North Dakota, since it's North Dakota.
I don't know why more Americans don't follow these simple guidelines to avoiding disasters. The way everyone lives here, you'd think that risk was a normal part of life!
Re: (Score:3)
The "large rainfall and snowmelt" figures are based on statistical analysis of what mostly happens. ie they are average figures which was why the dam system was run the way it was. Exceptional weather events weren't taken correctly into account.
Blame the developers (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
One of the basic tenets of building is that you don't do it on a flood plain. Yes, that means that vast portions of the midwest are basically only suitable for temporary dwellings. There's nothing wrong with that. Population densities are low anyway.
Whole cities which lie entirely on a flood plain are dumb.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Every time a huge development went in down by the river, the Corps was against it, but money talks and the city and county commissioners approved the measure, drooling over the taxes they'd get from million dollar houses on 150,000 dollar lots.
I have observed that many times, real estate developers and county or city commissioners are one and the same - or at least closely tied together.
Most of the time on the local level, people who go into public office are doing so to help their personal and business interests. Most of my local politicians up to the state level are business people - and it's unsurprising, to me anyway, the things that business gets away with.
trolling think tanks (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm, the american thinker article seems pretty trollish, utilizing descriptions that I would generally find in political hate speech, blaming environmentalists for the flooding. The articles point isn't to find root cause, but to spread hate at environmental groups.
A quick google search reveals that the american thinker is indeed a conservative online magazine. I would hope that folks realize there is a war of information out there between extremes of the political spectrum and that we are better off not spreading those words of hate. The extremists are always going to be looking to enlist you in their war, by claiming the other side is outrageous.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:trolling think tanks (Score:5, Informative)
> I suppose the fishing and tourism industry have largely similar interest as the
> "environmentalists" as far as the water levels.
Somebody didn't read the article before opening their hole. The shipping industry hates the green river management because it makes the river unsafe for navigation for large parts of the year. The original design called for enough flow to allow shipping year around. The greens want the river to flood in the spring (just not enough to bust levees, that was a mistake caused by their policy not the policy itself... at least as stated) and run low later in the year to follow natural patterns closer. To ensure a spring flood they held back too much water during the winter and when the spring rains and snow melt came stronger than expected they lacked the capacity to hold all of the water, forcing them to release at rates the levees could not hold back from the towns downstream. That is the charge against the Corps in a single sentence and it is pretty sound.
The mission of the system was changed in ways it was not designed for and no attempt was made to remake it to handle the new mission it was given. Failure was a given at that point just as certainly as when NASA ignored the manufacturers warnings about the thermal specs on Challenger's O-Rings.
Re:trolling think tanks (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that the MWCM was rewritten from basic flood control to include several competing targets: flood control, tourism, shipping, fishing, and water quality and environmental protection. The end result is that the ACE is now permanently under fire for not satisfying someone's pet condition, and they can't possibly win.
The hard truth is that whatever is being built is being built to match certani scenarios, whether it is the 100 year flood, the 100 year earthquake, or something similar. It cannot possibly be built to account for the absolut worst case scenario that could happen. And when something in that range happens, then, well, we're fucked.
Unfortunately, in the US, it seems that no one is able to accept that, and instead concentrates on scoring points for their ideological team. This article and the reaction of various politicians is the perfect example of it. The ACE is doing a thankless job with little funding and having to hit mutually exclusive targets, and what do we get? Demonization of them and various political groups.
To the writer of the article and the politicians trying to exploit this for gain: fuck off.
Re: (Score:3)
The American Thinker is conservative. But it is an undisputed fact that the Corps has been playing politics with their river management policies for decades. This does need to be reviewed.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
There are rules and even laws that tell the Corps how to regulate the water supply. They do what they're told. The blame lies squarely on the politicians who wrote the rules. There has been plenty of criticism from the Corps about having to hold back too much water.
Re: (Score:3)
You might have time to feed the trolls (the guy who wrote the article) and investigate every little thing they say, but I don't.
Spring Pulse or Summer Generation? (Score:2)
The Master Water Control Manual (Score:2, Informative)
Can be found here.. http://www.dnr.mo.gov/env/wrc/docs/MasterManualMarch2006.pdf
Why should I read this? (Score:5, Informative)
Who the hell is Joe Herring and why should I trust anything he writes? Did Slashdot review his scholarship here and give it a stamp of approval, or was it just put up on the website, leaving it to the readers to decide whether it's B.S. or not?
No qualifications or expertise are claimed for Joe Herring on the website. In fact no information on his background is given except that he is "from Omaha, NE." This is highly unusual for a publication that hopes to be taken seriously. We don't even know if that is his real name.
We are left to judge the value of this Joe Herring essay by his previous contributions [americanthinker.com] and by the reliability and reputation of the website that publishes his work.
Joe Herring is, in short, a right-wing nut.
He claims all leftists [americanthinker.com] -- all! -- want to overthrow the Constitution: "The continuum on the left that ranges from the 'wouldn't it be nice if we all just smiled' types to the hardcore authoritarian communists may disagree about methods, but sadly, all agree on one thing: if their utopia is to come about, the Constitution -- and the form of government derived from it -- must be replaced with...something."
He says the Nazis were left-wingers [americanthinker.com]: "The Left will not willingly lay claim to the true legacy of socialism, so we will have to hang it around their necks."
He believes that the true goal of health care reform, renewable-energy subsidies, and regulations on Wall Street is for "the left" to seize power and exterminate half of the human race. Really [americanthinker.com]: "As the federal government asserts control over health care, energy production, and the financial markets, the trinity of power is within the left's grasp. Unless driven back from their goals -- and quickly -- the likelihood grows daily that more than four billion of our 'species' will be joining the table scraps and yard clippings on the compost pile."
He thinks the problem with Politifact's [politifact.com] 2009 Lie of the Year, "death panels," is that the right wasn't lying hard enough [americanthinker.com]: "To describe this board as a 'death panel,' as Rush Limbaugh has, is to underestimate its power and misconstrue its purpose."
And five minutes with Google reveals that American Thinker is a source that, shall we say, lends no additional credibility to Joe Herring's contributions. Take global warming as a typical example. They printed essays claiming to have found a "smoking gun" that disproves global warming (wrong [skepticalscience.com]). Then they found another single argument that by itself disproves global warming [americanthinker.com] (still wrong [skepticalscience.com]). They argue that global warming is a Nazi lie [americanthinker.com].
This "intentional flooding" piece looks like yet another right-wing hit job on leftism. I would be happy to entertain the idea that misguided environmentalism is partially to blame for one disaster or another, but I would like to hear a reasoned argument from someone who's not a nut.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course the message leaves something to be desired. But that is the important part, not whether he is a lawyer from New York, or a plumber from Milwaukee.
Re:Why should I read this? (Score:4, Insightful)
If I'm being asked to trust what Joe Herring says because of who he is, then of course I need to know who he is. He doesn't present evidence to back up many of his assertions, he just writes stuff and hopes I'll believe it:
Says who?
Says who?
Says who?
Re: (Score:3)
Heh. I quoted statements of fact which were unsubstantiated. That's a problem. You quoted me giving an editorial opinion. That's not.
You edited out the link I provided (which, unlike Herring's, gave more information about what I was saying). And you omitted the sentence where I quoted someone to back up what I wrote.
Ooooookay.
Re:Why should I read this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Like this one, for example.
Actually, I don't need to know who Joe Herring is in this case, the writing style clearly show that's it's written by someone with an axe to grind, and coming from a politically motivated position - I really don't need to wade through all that crap just in case he stumbled on a valid point somewhere.
Re:Why should I read this? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not the messenger, it's the message.
It's a little hard to take seriously a message from a web site that argues [americanthinker.com] that Hitler was a "green" and that "Nazi SS doctrine (was) an explosive concoction of eugenics and environmentalism loaded with eco-imperialistic ambitions that had devastating consequences on the Eastern Front in World War II." Seriously, what? The Nazi SS doctrine was environmentalism? Environmentalism and eco-imperialism were responsible for the Eastern Front in WWII [wikipedia.org]? Crazy.
Re: (Score:3)
Sorry. There are almost no citations in the article to back up his claims. That means that it is arguing from personal authority. Therefore, the personal authority of Joe Herring is of critical importance, because it is the only source of evidence provided to back up his claims.
Joe Herring has no personal authority. Therefore, the article rests on no evidence.
Ad hominem
Re: (Score:3)
It is perfectly valid to impeach the reliability of a information source when evaluating the credibility of what he says. When the mayor says don't come downtown because there's been a terrorist attack, it's not ad hominem to regard him as more credible than that homeless guy who talks to people who aren't there making the same claim. Ad hominem is a fallacy of distraction ; it's about bringing in irrelevant data (I hate the mayor, the mayor is a Republican, the mayor is a Jew, the homeless guy has a Ph
Re: (Score:3)
For judging credibility? Perhaps.
You're saying that using the past reliability of a source to judge its current crediblity is *perhaps* justifiable? What else would you go on?
For judging truth? Not on your life.
There is no point of even bringing up the question of the truth of a claim in a total absence of evidence.
However...
If a source makes an unsubstantiated claim that *could* be substantiated if it had a reasonable basis for believing it, AND the source has made similar claims in the past that were false but could reasonably have been checked AND the source has a motivat
Re: (Score:3)
Who Joe Herring is, is not the issue. It's not the messenger, it's the message. Unless you want to indulge in a lot of ad hominem arguments.
Eventually you can stop fact checking the schizophrenic homeless guy on the street corner.
"Consider your source". While even a broken clock is right twice a day, you shouldn't be using a source which is consistently wrong since it'll more often than not be misleading. Now, if this is all true then this source should have no trouble finding a reliable source to verify and certify it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is exactly right. The dams were NOT just built for flood control. They were built to generate electricity. When you empty out the reservoirs, you don't have any water to generate electricity.They were also built to allow navigation, and when you empty out the reservoirs you don't have water to sustain river flows for navigation. The claim that this was caused by environmental concerns is just wing-nut conspiracy theorist nonsense.
But it will get repeated over and over again until it is treated as commo
Army corp blames the rain (Score:3)
Not exactly -- there are engineering reasons too (Score:5, Informative)
"'Whether warned or not, the fact remains that had the Corps been true to its original mission of flood control, the dams would not have been full in preparation for a spring pulse,'"
There's another aspect. Over time people have learned that if you completely moderate the annual flow of a river by flood control, the channels will silt up, whereas if you have a higher peak flow in the spring, the channels get flushed out. You may say "big deal, let them silt up", but allowing the channels to silt up means the channel itself has less capacity to contain the river's peak flows (less cross-sectional area), and there is a tendency for the bottom of the channel to get shallower, meaning that when the flood waters come, the levees on the banks are easier to overtop. Alternatively you can build those levees ever higher, the river bed silts up some, you build the levees higher again, and eventually the river gradient (slope) is reduced so much that when a levee failure does happen, the bottom of the river bed is well above the floodplain, and the whole thing drains out onto the floodplain even more catastrophically. This is what happens in some parts of China because of many centuries of levee building -- the river is perched high above the floodplain (e.g., the lower parts of the Yellow River [wikipedia.org]).
Maintaining something that emulates the natural seasonal flow of the river in a moderated way is an important technique to maintain the system over the long-term in a more manageable state than if you adopt the principle to contain absolutely everything at all times and all circumstances. Peak spring flow flushes the system out. It's not a bunch of idealistic environmentalist/hippies constraining the engineers, it's the engineers themselves realizing the limitations of their previous approach, and that if they ignore what the river does over the long term, it will get harder and harder to control and eventually they'll lose the battle anyway. It's better to understand how the system works and adapt to it.
In short, don't believe a politician knows how the hell to manage a river system, or that they care much about what their decisions today will mean 20 or 50 years down the line, rather than the next election. You'd think a former history teacher would have a sense of perspective on these things. Blaming it on "environmentalists" is just a cheap political ploy.
Re: (Score:3)
Silting doesn't only hurt the ability of the system to flow downstream, it also kills navigation - which is part of the new MWCM.
The ACE was fucked from the start on this one.
One and done mentality (Score:5, Interesting)
The blog/post/whatever-that-was implies a false dichotomy. Yes the original flood control dams were designed to control flooding (hence the name), yes subsequent environmental understanding caused the release cycle to be more pulsed than continuous. The solution isn't to choose between the two, the solution is to re-invest and rebuild portions to accommodate both.
The mass funding of infrastructure improvements (bridges, interstates, dams, power) from the 1930's to 1960's was a good thing but we can't view them as a one and done process. They not only take maintenance they also need to be redone as they age and new understanding of their effects arise.
We must start taking a longer view, if the replacement infrastructure cost of all of those things is 10 trillion dollars (or some other number) and their average life cycle due to aging or other factors is 50 years then we need to start replacing them on that cycle of 200 billion/year. Part of the problem is that so much infrastructure was placed in so little time (10 to 20 years) it's all coming due at once.
Sadly we take a short term, one and done approach, we have a dam, why would we ever need to rebuilt it.
Dutch 500 BC solution: (Score:3, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_dwelling_hill
An artificial dwelling hill ("Terp"), created to provide safe ground during high tide and river floods.
In 500 BC it was for keeping there feet, food and livestock dry, but it should work for computers, wide-screen TV's and SUV's just the same.
Not the Corps Fault (Score:3, Informative)
I live in North Dakota and my dad Travels to Montana often. There is water everywhere in ND and Montana. We have never, and I repeat, NEVER seen water anything like this. The rain and the snow pack these last two years have been incredible.
The fields are so wet many farmers have simply not planted their crops. This is coming from an area that for the majority of my life has been about 1 inch of rain away from being declared technically a desert (and in the drought years in the late 80's it was under the 7 inches of precip for 12 months).
Everything is flooding up here, the Missouri river, the Mouse River and all their tributaries. There is water being released from the Spillway on the Garrison Dam now. This is the spillway that was 1/4 mile away from the river on the river side just 5 years ago, this is the Spillway that had never been used since the Dam was built in 1953. I was just there a couple weeks ago. That river is full, and there is water coming out of the Rocky Mountains right now that is flowing more CFM than what they are releasing out of the Damn. This is as controlled as it can get.
There used to be 8 ways to get to my parents house, right now there is 1 as the rest of the roads are underwater (and we are 50 miles from the Missouri river, this is just slews and low areas accumulating rain water). Areas that I have never seen water in are now 8 foot deep lakes.
Just something to keep in mind. ND has been trying to get the Corps to hold back more water for over a decade as one of our main fisheries, the Missouri river, was down to the original river channel. The corps never listened and never held the water back, Mother Nature decided to give us all the water we could ever want, then she forgot to stop.
I have been raised to hate the way the Corps treat the river all my life, but in this instance they are doing everything that can be done to save as much property and as many lives as they can.
Re:News Flash (Score:4, Informative)
Move out of the flood zones or buy flood insurance. Its no different than the people that blamed the Army Corps when New Orleans flooded. Wake up people, you're living below sea level (New Orleans) or living in the 100 year flood plain (Midwest). What did you really think was going to happen?
I live there, I have flood insurance. My insurance company wont cover a single cent because the flood is man made. Now what smart ass?
Re:News Flash (Score:5, Insightful)
Move out of the flood zones or buy flood insurance. Its no different than the people that blamed the Army Corps when New Orleans flooded. Wake up people, you're living below sea level (New Orleans) or living in the 100 year flood plain (Midwest). What did you really think was going to happen?
I live there, I have flood insurance. My insurance company wont cover a single cent because the flood is man made. Now what smart ass?
Wait, wait. Insurance companies exclude acts of God AND acts of man? Doesn't that mean they never pay out...oooooh.
The insurance business needs some serious fucking regulation.
Re:News Flash (Score:4, Insightful)
The insurance business is probably the most heavily regulated business around.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Threaten to sue them. Often they cave after receiving a letter from a lawyer. And it has to be from a lawyer, not you. For a relatively small claim the lawyer will get a few hundred dollars for having spent 15 minutes dashing off a form letter, and you'll get your money. For a big claim, you'll probably have to agree to give a lawyer 1/3 (!!!!) of the money you receive, if any. Which means you should factor that in to the size of the settlement you would find acceptable. The lawyer will threaten them,
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What a tard. Didn't you know that the free market pulled out of the flood insurance decades ago when the Feds took over? Yup, the only source of flood insurance is the US Federal Government's Flood Insurance program. Guess they only run those PSAs in areas where flooding is a problem or you don't have a TV? We get em all the time where they explain that no homeowner's policy covers flood damage, that only the Federal Flood Insurance program does that and that your policy must be in force thirty days bef
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously? I'm just.... speechless. That's pretty low. How can it not cover the flooding that's happening? It's a flood and it's not your fault, you even took the precaution of flood insurance.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:News Flash (Score:5, Informative)
Move out of the flood zones or buy flood insurance. Its no different than the people that blamed the Army Corps when New Orleans flooded. Wake up people, you're living below sea level (New Orleans) or living in the 100 year flood plain (Midwest). What did you really think was going to happen?
I live there, I have flood insurance. My insurance company wont cover a single cent because the flood is man made. Now what smart ass?
I moved to Western Nebraska several years ago. Nearly everyone along the Platte River in town is a business. Those in houses are 4 blocks or more from the river. In order to buy a house near the Platte River, you were required to buy flood insurance. Some folks I know have been told by their insurance companies that if/when their houses flood it won't be covered because they knowingly moved onto a flood plain.
Also, keep in mind that the Platte River doesn't flood every year here. Sometimes, there is a little flooding, but it never even gets near the businesses along the river and rarely goes out far enough to be a concern to houses. We have had a Spring that was unusually rainy and we are just now getting the snow melt from the Rockies.
Re:News Flash (Score:5, Informative)
Are you sure? Who told you this, the Feds?
I don't know what state you're in, but here's a helpful document from the South Dakota Department of Labor and Regulation:
http://dlr.sd.gov/news/releases11/nr060311_flood_insurance.pdf [sd.gov]
It states:
"FEMA has responded to a commonly asked question with the following statement: If you already have flood insurance, policies under the National Flood Insurance Program cover flood damages to insured buildings and contents, whether caused by man-made events such as an intentional opening of spillways or breaching of levees, or whether simply caused by a natural flooding event."
That directly contradicts what you are telling us. Perhaps you should speak to FEMA and clarify things, as I think you are mistaken about your coverage.
Re:News Flash (Score:4, Informative)
It would seem that FEMA has clarified a distinction of "man-made" vs. "man-controlled" floods.
http://www.yankton.net/articles/2011/06/17/community/doc4dface08e4c1f621282576.txt
As for calls to move out of a floodplain, in general I agree. Assuming the consumer has perfect knowledge then this is a fair criticism. But flood policy in the US is not intended to prevent development within identified floodplains. In fact, if we did not want any development within the floodplain then there would be no NFIP, banks would do their own independent evaluation of risk exposure for a property, and real-estate disclosure forms would cover more than just the 100-year floodplain. But instead homeowners are not properly advised of the complexities of home ownership and the system is intentionally designed to keep it this way. I believe that people should be held accountable for their own decisions but this is premised on perfect access to information and sufficient educational opportunities. There are many forces that work against this, though, so how harsh to be on people that make poor decisions, or good decisions that later get trumped by Nature, is a tough call.
But the fact remains that the NFIP is a program designed to enable development within the floodplain in addition to an insurance model that theoretically paid for itself. (Of course it was noted years ago that the NFIP funds were nowhere near sufficient to adequately pay for the exposure covered by the policies it issued. Florida as an insurer of last resort was/is in the same boat; ultimately we the people back the policies.)
I think we all know that what is "right" and what is political reality are two different things. As an engineer & government official who has worked in this field for over 10 years I find much of it frustrating. It's all about balance, and in general I've found that a member of the public's thoughts on the subject tend to align with which side of that cut-off line they are on.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:News Flash (Score:4, Insightful)
This situation couldn't be further from what happened in New Orleans. The current flooding seems to be an example of a flood control system working as intended, albeit with unintended consequences. In New Orleans, the Corps' system of protection was undermined by the Corps' actions in maintaining MRGO; while the Corps could not be held liable for its negligent maintenance of the levies, it could be (and was) held liable for its negligent maintenance of the channel (ruling available at local news site http://www.wdsu.com/r/21668365/detail.html [wdsu.com] ), given that the channel increased the power of the storm surge into New Orleans.
Re: (Score:3)
The Willamette Valley in Oregon is nice. River running down it so no droughts, mountains to the west so no tsunamis, mountains to the east so it's protected from the winds/weather from the east, there's places that are pretty safe from flooding (up on hills) and there hasn't seemed to be very many earthquakes. We do have rain and a few storms but nothing that major that happens often (unlike say a place called "Tornado Alley").
Only real problem seems to be pollen [pollen.com]. Can you guess where on the map the Willamet
Re: (Score:3)
Can you name a single place in the US that isn't prone to some natural disaster? Earthquakes in California, hurricanes and tsunamis (remember, most of hese floods are worse than anything in over 100 years) on the coasts, tornados in the midwest, floods near rivers. No US citizen is safe from natural disasters.
While certainly there is nowhere with 0 risk, it would be silly to claim that the risk can't be mitigated greatly by choosing a safer location. A few minutes with google returned several good lists of disasters:
http://www.fema.gov/news/disaster_totals_annual.fema [fema.gov]
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/reports/billionz.html [noaa.gov]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_disasters_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
While you are right that you can find virtually any area in the US on those lists, there are some areas that show up
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I am aware that the idea is relatively unpopular, but we are going to have to cut back on immigration if we want to solve these problems.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
(I'm from Missouri/Kansas) In case you're wondering, there are FEWER people living in the affected areas because so many people have moved out of the country and small towns to large cities which sprawl far away from the rivers. In my grandparents' town of 250, there used to be about 1000 living there. In KC, there is never any new development on the rivers except for casino "riverboats."
There may be problems caused by immigration, but flooding on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers isn't one of them. U
Re: (Score:3)
The clear reason for the current rate of population growth in the United States is immigration.
The yearly US population growth rate is 0.97%. By my calculation that's very close to 3 million people per year. The annual increase in the population due to immigration is about 900,000 per year. So while immigration is indeed a large part of population growth, I don't think the way you characterise it is correct. Even if all immigration were curtailed, the population would grow by over 2 million a year.
Re: (Score:3)
I fail to see the link between floods and growth+population. Care to elaborate ?
Re: (Score:3)
The link is pretty obviously between the consequences of floods and population growth.
But just to make the case: more people, more AGW, more floods.
Your statement only holds true if one presumes/agrees that AGW is gospel. If it is not, then your statement isn't true. Additionally, more people with better production of energy eliminates the link as well, assuming there was one. On top of all of that, where is your evidence that AGW caused the flooding on the Mississippi? The article itself implies that the flooding is due far more to the meddlesome interference of environmentalists than any other factor.
If the corps of engineers had been allowed to run
Re:Too Many (Score:4, Informative)
You've never been along the Missouri River in North Dakota or South Dakota if you think over population or growth are why people live in that flood plain.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=pierre+sd&hl=en&sll=48.23251,-101.296273&sspn=0.200333,0.429153&z=12 [google.com]
Thats the capital of South Dakota and neighboring city, the capital has been there since about 1886, the neighboring city was an American Indian site back to about 1700, white settlement since about 1810, right down river of the Oahe Dam.
While about 25,000 people live in the area there, it's not overbuilt or over populated.
Re:Too Many (Score:5, Interesting)
The US doesn't need land "urgently" for either purpose. If prices rise too high, more people will grow food. It's not a lost art.
It was once typical for even suburban homes to have a serious garden out back. Many older lot sizes and home positions reflect this. "Victory Gardens" produced massive amounts of quality produce (hint, not the flavorless shit you buy in stores) during WWII, and domestic fowl provided eggs and meat. (The Backyard Chicken movement is reasserting itself. I have more eggs than I can use, and barter or gift them to friends who hook me up with produce.)
The modern world doesn't have an arable land problem, it has a land use problem.
Re:Too Many (Score:5, Interesting)
When I lived in NJ, I had a wonderful garden, I was able to keep a family of 6 and my family of 4 feed with vegetables from may to first freeze. I spent 1 hour every day in the garden. it was very calming. What I thought was great that I could give away more vegetables than I could consume and the only cost was my time and water ( nope never bought fertilizers ).
my crops were corn, carrots, collard greens, beans, tomatoes, zucchini, funny looking squash, and a few others on a garden that was 20 x 33. learned from PBS some gardening show.
Now in Florida I have a condo, and all can get growing is tomatoes and beans.
Re:Too Many (Score:5, Interesting)
Because our constitution doesn't permit government to have that kind of power over people's lives. Also note, that population rises are starting to level off without it. For the first time in US history, white babies are a minority. When brown people become more affluent, their numbers will likewise not increase so fast and possibly decrease.
My mother had seven siblings, I had only one sister, I only have two kids myself. When your kids are likely to die before adulthood, you need more of them.
Re:Too Many (Score:4, Insightful)
Eh, just say it's necessary and proper to regulate interstate commerce. Name any conceivable thing any government may ever want to do, which isn't covered by that power.
Re:Too Many (Score:5, Insightful)
No the people building million dollar homes on the banks of a river that floods yearly, are the failures here.
If they released water at the wrong time of the year it could wreck havoc on the fish population, which would result in people complaining that the corps is a failure for letting the fish die that the fishermen depended on.
Rock and a hard place. Frankly the fact that they have been able to control as much flooding as they have, with the resources they have speaks volumes.
In our country at this time we dont seem to want to fund our infrastructure. So when it cannot meet our needs, do we blame ourselves for not paying for stronger levies? No, we blame the people who have done the most with the least, because we failed to pay for the damn shit.
I personally expect to see more complaints like this, when our bridges fail, and our damns fail, and our power systems fail. I can see it now, asshats like you saying "Those damn (Insert government agency) failed to build a damn in the 40s that could last 70 years."
Fuck off.
Re:Too Many (Score:4, Interesting)
Infrastructure is not the problem here. These dams are engineering marvels. True, they were built in the 60's, but they are working today exactly as designed. This has nothing to do with our issues with regards to infrastructure funding. It has everything to do with years of above expected rainfall in the plains, and the Corps failure to account for that. Now it could be that rainfall has increased so much that this was really unavoidable, but in the wake of this an investigation into what the Corps policies should be is absolutely required.
Re:Too Many (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually he line coming from AGW folks regarding this region was to expect widespread drought.
Recently I saw an article that indicated that some models of climate assumed that higher temps would lead to more water vapor at high altitudes which would lead to more warning. What appears to be happening, however, is that there is more water vapor at lower altitudes which means more rain.
I'm fine with scientists changing their theories in the face of new evidence, but to stare that they told us this is what was going to happen is incorrect. They actually told us this out come wasn't going to happen.
Also, the dam system on the Missouri is fully built out, suggesting more dams is an ignorant observation in this discussion.
Re:Too Many (Score:5, Informative)
The regional predictions I've seen from the "AGW folks" predict more drought in the Southern Midwest like Texas and Oklahoma but not necessarily in the Upper Midwest and Northern Rockies. On top of that having a drought doesn't mean you can't have flooding. One or two big rainstorms that cause a big flood won't break a drought. It takes many normal rainstorms spread out over time to do that. Even deserts have their occasional flash floods.
From what I've heard this flooding is due to a cold wet spring (driven largely by the La Nina that's ending) causing well above average snow packs that are late in melting plus heavier than normal rainfall (which helps the snow melt faster when it falls on it). I'm not sure the Corps of Engineers could have let enough water out of their reservoirs to avoid flooding although they might have been able to moderate it somewhat.
The flooding in Minot, ND has no relation to the Missouri flooding. The Souris River originates and flows back in to Canada into the Assiniboine River. What I heard is it's caused by heavy rain on top of already saturated soil.
Re:Too Many (Score:4, Insightful)
Who is "we"? The fine people of Louisiana, for example, DID pay for infrastructure improvements. Their fearless leaders spent the money elsewhere.
Re:Too Many (Score:5, Interesting)
Dams and other devices are flood 'mitigation' not prevention tools. Levies are meant to be flood prevention tools, however when everyone builds levees on a river you concentrate the flow and raise the height of the river because it can not spread out over the "flood plans".
Dams provide a water detention facility, the detain a portion of the flow at peak periods to release it at low flow periods. Dams are not automatically infinitely rising block all water devices, they will only detain the amount of water they have been designed too.
So you must guess the flooding months in advance and, release additional water in low flow periods. However no matter what you do, when flooding is at a peak it will overflow all dams. Added to that are idiotic greedy right wingers who don't want to pay for the proper maintenance and due replacement of fifty year old or more structures, which must now release water at lower levels least the break or if water over flows, the dam be undermined or excessive erosion occur upon surrounding land.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow, the Malthusian liberal line is out in force today.
South and North Dakota's use of federal money has nothing whatsoever to do with welfare moms and to high a birth rate.
Federal funds come into the Midwest in the form of farm subsidies and or the Dakotas, in the form of money going to Indian reservations. Those reservations are a prime example of how federal handouts don't work, but are the last spending that the liberal elites in the states you mentioned would end.
Very good arguments to end farm subsid
Re:Too Many (Score:5, Interesting)
Farm subsidies ought to end because they subsidize the wrong things. Indian subsidies are reparations, so it's kind of a different thing. The way they are administered doesn't seem right to me, but it's hard to argue against the reparations because we did basically steal all their land.
Like you, I find it reprehensible that people have so little respect for the farmers who put food on their table. The latest insult, of course, being the anti-immigrant laws that have resulted in millions of dollars worth of food crops rotting in the fields because there's no-one available to pick them.
Re:Too Many (Score:5, Insightful)
Indian subsidies are reparations, so it's kind of a different thing.
So, for how long do these reparations last, and when can we stop with the apartheid and enforced isolation of native folk under that name?
I mean, seriously - I don't see Germany paying general reparations money to Russia, Poland, the Czech Republic, most of Eastern Europe, etc. over WWII - and that was a hell of a lot more recent than Wounded Knee, dontcha think? As for "stolen land", yup - human history is basically full of examples of that. It's an un-doable part of our past, and maybe it's time we stopped guilting ourselves so much over it and perpetuating the BS that goes with it.
Of course, if you think differently, then you're more than free to start buying ancestral tribal lands and handing it over to the nearest American with native blood. While my own ancestry dictates such land to be in North Carolina, I'll be happy with a few acres a lot closer to my job out here in the Pacific Northwest if that's okay with you. ;)
Point is, calling it reparations is ludicrous at this point. It should just be called what it is - paternalistic allowance money.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow, the Malthusian liberal line is out in force today.
Malthus was a conservative parson.
Re:Too Many (Score:5, Interesting)
California is broke because they're not allowed to raise taxes on anything ever without a two-thirds majority, but it only takes a 50%+1 vote for citizens to vote in new spending using the proposition system. Also, California is actually not as broke as they thought, because despite this tax revenues were a lot higher this year than was projected.
I have no idea about the state of Massachusetts' finances, but I given how well-informed you are about California, I suspect you are similarly poorly-informed about Massachusetts.
I don't know what being god has to do with it. Do you mean that we shouldn't have any laws at all? That murder should be okay? Or is it only laws that restrain corporations that are a problem? Maybe it should be okay for corporations to poison people, but not for individual people to poison people? It should be okay for corporations to defraud people, but not for people to defraud people?
Re: (Score:3)
In one of the testimonies I heard on the radio it seems a woman was sterilized at least partly because she was deemed promiscuous for having a child before being married. She was in fact raped. Others were sterilized without their knowledge because they were poor. They didn't find out until they were married and tried to have their first children. Whites
Re: (Score:3)
The obvious 1st choice is to offer $100,000 tax free to anyone who gets sterilized. $50,000 if they have 1 kid. World-wide. The poorer the country, the more $100,000 is worth. It'll boost economies better than wars.
Re:Too Many (Score:5, Insightful)
So, you're proposing to pay the local thugs $100K for every woman they force to get sterilized?
Or don't you think that some rebel thug (the kind of guy who moves in, rapes kills and plunders an area, then moves on) is going to pass up the chance to make a few tens of millions?
Or perhaps you thought that the local thugs are going to let the women KEEP the $100K?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
True enough. Simple physics.
When it's warmer, the same volume of air, can hold more water-vapour, AND more water evaporates from warmer seas.
But when more water goes up, more water must also come down, it's not as if it -accumulates- up there. Thus we'll get heavier rainfall.
Best-case, some of that rainfall comes in areas that need it, and where it causes more good than harm.
But unavoidably, some of it will come down at inconvenient times and or inconvenient places.
House design (Score:3)
If the dams weren't there, then we would have to think differently about living on flood plains. The alternatives include not to live on flood plains or build houses adapted to flood plains. With a large population and the availability of fertile land the former is not always an option, while the latter has worked in teaditional communities around the world. One of those designs is stilted houses, designed to be above the normal, and possibly maximum, flood levels for the region.
Certainly changing the build
Re:Red herring (Score:4, Interesting)
The National Flood Insurance Program is another example of well intentioned government subsidies putting people directly in harm's way.
Re:Red herring (Score:4, Interesting)
Indeed. If they can't go elsewhere then that money should be spent on building homes that are adapted to the local geography, instead of generic homes adapted to nowhere.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Red herring (Score:4, Informative)
While I think that re-building below sea-level is short-sighted, your characterizations are inaccurate.
Those who originally lived in New Orleans (which was 200+ years ago) lived on the high ground of the natural levee formed by the banks of the Mississippi (The shape of that is how New Orleans got the nickname "the Crescent City") It was not a nice, smooth flat place in the floodplain.
After some time, the idea that the swamps would be fertile farmland if they could be drained was realized by a French engineer that invented the big pumps. Of course, the tenant farmers then lived in the lowlands that were previously swamps, and were periodically flooded out. Over time, that population increased, and eventually grew into a city.
An unfortunate side effect of draining the swamps was that the land actually shrunk and settled as the water was pulled out, gradually dropping the elevation of the land.
To protect from flooding, levees were built along the river to contain the spring overflow. This had an additional unintended consequence, since the floods no longer spread out to deposit their silt and sediment and build up the land, and the flood plain gradually dropped further.
So the pumping of the swamps allowed use of the land, and the existence of the levees protected against "normal" floods, but those things created a sense of comfort while setting up New Orleans up for a big disaster.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
French? What are you talking about, I thought this used to be America! What's next? You going to tell me New York used to have some faggot ass unamerican name like "New Amsterdam" or something,
Re: (Score:3)
Funnily enough, back then "niggers" didn't decide where people built houses. They built them, but it was whites that did designs, engineering and architecture.
So if that was indeed his intention, he sure shot himself in the foot.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles (the skyscraper part, not the evil sprawl part), and Chicago. Anyone who doesn't fit can have excess parts removed. Dams and levees can fall apart naturally, farms and fields in the dangerous areas can return to woods and grasslands, and all the people in the sustainable, low-impact, short commute cities can still get their food from their local grocery stores.
Re:Red herring (Score:4, Interesting)
I believe CptNerd was being sarcastic. My reasoning is because his comment alludes to a story I heard a number of years ago from a member of a pro-ranching PAC. This particular story, as it was relayed to me, goes something like the following:
At a convention or regulatory meeting of sorts, possibly for ranchers, a young environmentalist was espousing the cruelty of keeping animals in such confines. Slaughtering them was a form of murder, after all, and our passionate young friend proposed that all cattle in captivity should be freed so they can live again in the wild as nature intended. Puzzled by the economics of such actions, a rancher asked the young man, "If you free all the cattle, how do you plan on buying meat?"
Without hesitation, the environmentalist replied "At the grocery store like everyone else."
Re: (Score:3)
When you consider that nearly all of the original Jamestown colony died off its first winter, or that nearly all of Columbus' original colony died off due to violence...
Yeah, fuggit. Let's just all go home. Think the EU has enough room for a couple hundred million folks to move back in?
Re:Red herring (Score:5, Informative)
That is a ton of garbage.
Hoover Dam, for one, was built almost entirely by Depression era American citizens, the Manhattan Project had some foreign born persons in technical leadership positions, but it wasn't just a theoretical operation, three major sites and 30 secondary sites were constructed by US workers so the whole thing would work.
127 German scientists from Operation Paperclip worked on the US military and civilian rocket program, out of roughly 5600 total scientists.
As for Americans not being able to build anything durable, how do you explain the longevity of systems like the Boeing 737, 747, Abrams tank, Nimitz class aircraft carrier, the Chevy 350 small block engine, the GM 3.8 liter V-6 (aka Buick Fireball/Buick V6), F-15, 1911A1 pistol, the Jeep, the Intel x86 architecture, the original Macintosh, the IBM PC, etc
Re:Let me be the first to say: FUCK EM (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you eat today? Thank 'the Heartland'.
Re: (Score:3)
Thank 'the Heartland'.
I thank 'the Heartland' for their ability and willingness to take advantage of an environment that is suitable for growing vast quantities of food. Does that mean I need to respect their backward and counterproductive political views? Not for a second. I grew up there. I know how stupid most of those people are.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The flood controls were used, but the system was overwhelmed with water. Extra water from melting snow and some ill-timed thunderstorms filled the reservoirs to capacity, forcing them to release more water more quickly than normal. This led
Re: (Score:3)