Moving a River!

[pcktfullofokenite]

If you have haven't heard in the news recently the Louisiana legislature has passed a master plan to move the Mississipi River to counteract the loss of sediment that's causing the land there to sink. I'd like to see them pull it off personally. I would even go down there and survey it for them. Here's the link.

nytimes.com/2006/09/19/science/19rive.html?ex=1316318400&...&emc=rss

[jewelonly]

A very interesting article. They are to be commended for trying to think outside the box to address a very complex geophysical problem with tremendous economic, cultural and environmental implications.

It is interesting to note that the Mississippi began changing its course in the 1950s by using one of its distributaries, the Atchafalaya, which had a steeper descent to the sea, to send more of its channel flow. Eventually it would have become the major Mississippi channel (and more efficient, according to the river, which always seeks the most direct course to the sea) had it been left unchecked. Unfortunately, however, it would have completely bypassed New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Because of the economic impact of such a channel diversion, the Corp of Engineers built the Old River Control Structure, which controlled the amount of water that the Mississippi could send into the Atchafalaya, even in flood stages, thereby keeping it in its present channel.

All of which is...pretty COOL Science! (smiling)

Thank you for posting the link. I join you in wishing for their success.

Leah

[lincolnrocker]

Wow! I thought I hated moving! It will be interesting to see how well the project goes. It's usually pretty hard to over-ride nature on such a large scale.

Lori

[snakewrangler]

Well Leah don't foreget the Colorado River was moved during the construction of the Hoover Dam. I don't know how they managed to do it, but I do know that the workers blasted through the canyon walls for about a 1/4 of a mile or maybe it was a mile and a 1/4 I can't remember. My question is how did they do it? I can understand the blasting, but what about the last blast? Who set off the explosives? Did he live? How did they get the river to flow back on it's origninal course?

There are somethings we just caint explain.

Kyle

[jewelonly]

Hi Kyle,

...timed charges I suppose, or maybe a really, really loooooooong fuse. :-)

A very good article on the construction of the Hoover Dam and the necessary diversion of the Colorado river during its construction can be found at this link... www.romanconcrete.com/docs/hooverdam/hooverdam.htm It may answer some of your questions about the project. It certainly answered some of mine, especially the diagrams.

Enjoy your summer!(smiling)

Leah

[dixieeuhedrals]

In Northeast Georgia , Changing creek and river routes used to be a common thing back during the gold mining days . Where ever there was "S" curves , they would dig a ditch and cause the river to take a new course , thereby leaving the s curves dry or close to it . Then they could get the gold much easier . Those were the days of hydraulic mining and such back then , before any thought of environmental impact .

[pcktfullofokenite]

Well, at least in a marshy area like southern Louisiana there isn't much in the way of rocks to move. The challenge is to move all that river sediment. They could dam up a section of the river and direct the water to flow in the direction they want it to. Depending on the topography it shouldn't take much of an effort for the river to change bit by bit, the land is so flat down there. I'm sure there are enviornmental concerns. I would be worried about stirring up all the junk Katrina left behind. I was thinking about the issue recently though and said to myself, you know it would be pretty cool to have a city like Venice, Italy in the south. I'd probably go more often then.

[genchaos]

Diverting rivers is nothing new. Both the Bible and historians remark on the Babylonians diverting the Euphrates and using it as a moat system as added defense for their insanely large double walls.
Not that it mattered. Cyrus, as king of the Medo-Persian empire, simply diverted the river into a low-lying marsh and marched his army right into the city through the emptying riverbed.

[sapphiregirl]

My minister and the chairman of the board at our church would probably help you. There was a river that was diverted by Hurricane Camille in 1969 but it was a disaster. I wonder just how much material was moved during that storm. You can still see where the side of the mountain came down.

[colorshapetexture]

the whole mississippi is levied. and has been controlled by the corps of engineers for a long time. during the recent past there have many levies that failed even as far north as northern missouri and iowa. www.mvn.usace.army.mil/hps/hps_improve.htm# videos and a lot of info on the army corps and the mississippi valley. Jim