Seeking to connect on water issues
There are seven dams on the Missouri River, one of the main tributaries of the mighty Mississippi. And behind those dams lies Louisiana’s coastline. Tons of silt carried downriver from the Missouri to the Mississippi and then to the Gulf of Mexico have for eons laid the foundation for the Mississippi Delta. The dams, the first of which was built in the 1930s, have cut off that flow, leaving Louisiana with an eroding coastline. Today, those dams are managed for a long list of purposes: navigation, flood control, water quality, irrigation, hydropower, recreation, and fish and wildlife, but not necessarily for the health of the landforms thousands of miles downstream. To Gerald Galloway, professor at the University of Maryland, the disconnect between water management matters upstream and needs downstream is a symptom of a larger problem. The United States lacks a national water policy to guide development and use of the nation’s major...