I hope the residents of Cairo IL appreciate the sacrifice that Missouri farmers made yesterday

[MadHound]

"The Army Corps of Engineers had blown holes in the Birds Point Levee on Monday night, allowing the Mississippi River to fill the 132,000-acre floodway. The move dropped the river level upstream in areas such as Cairo, Ill., which had been threatened by floodwater.

Bennett had been asked several times Tuesday how the county would continue to function after a third of it had been drowned.

"I don't have an answer," he said.

But Bennett feared the worst.

The river would probably cover crops with tons of silt and sand, rendering the land impossible to farm for years to come, he said.

"Once that happens," he said, "it's over."
<http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/article_588a4d62-6927-51ed-a509-1aaba4eb2866.html>

One hundred and thirty thousand acres of farmland rendered barren for years. Hundreds of families rendered homeless, their lives destroyed.

This wasn't a good situation, a choice between this or allowing Cairo to be inundated. But the Army Corp of Engineers didn't have to follow the procedure they did. Instead of blowing the north end of the levee, and letting the water rush in in what has been described as a miniature tsunami, the Corp. could have blown the south end of the levee, allowing the water to back in, a much gentler solution that wouldn't have allowed as much silt into the area, that wouldn't have torn up houses, buildings and roads.

I've always thought that the Army Corp was fairly inept, given how they've acted in the past. This only confirms it. Worse yet, I just heard the Corp. is now talking about blowing levees on further down the river.

I hope the residents of Cairo IL are appreciative of the sacrifices that these Missourians have made. I hope they help us out with the rebuilding process. I hope the Army Corp of Engineers rots in hell for the mess they've made. They needlessly took a situation that would have been somewhat destructive, and made it catastrophic.

[Angry Dragon]

1. That is what happens when you get rid of the natural

flood plains......... when the rivers get full there is no place for it to go.......

[msongs]

2. flooding of fields is nature's way of replenishing the soil - maybe farmers should be thankful eh? n

[MadHound]

4. If the Corp had blown the South end of the levee, that is exacly what would have happened

The trouble is, they blew the north end of the levy, and the tremendous water pressure is bringing thousands of tons of silt and sand with it, depositing it on the fields, rendering them infertile for years.

Back in the '93 the rushing Missouri river deposited silt and sand on fields in the bottomlands. It was over a decade before some of those fields could be utilized.

[Javaman]

26. The question that needs to be asked is...

who owns which land?

politics are never ever involved in decisions like this, nor is money...ever.

[SoCalDem]

21. perhaps when rivers were not cesspools full of toxins

that land will be useless for a good long while:(

[DCKit]

3. "...tons of silt and sand, rendering the land impossible to farm for years to come."

Say what? Farmers along the Nile have been doing it wrong for how many thousands of years now?

[MadHound]

5. This ain't the nice and gentle rise and fall like the Nile

This is the Mississippi River, with massively pent up pressure, bursting through a hole in a levee. It is not going to only destroy buildings, but since it is carrying so much silt and sand with it, this will be deposited over the fields, rendering them infertile for years.

The same phenomenon happened during the Missouri River flooding in '93, and there were some bottomland fields that couldn't be farmed for a decade.

[DCKit]

6. In that case, I'd be happy to take it off their hands, for a reasonable price. nt

[MadHound]

15. You may not even be able to afford a reasonable price

One hundred and thirty thousand acres of cropland destroyed means that much less food in the system, and it also means that you're going to be paying higher prices for food for the next few years.

And the cheap price on the land is going to be deceiving. You might be able to buy some of that farmland for pennies on the dollar, but you're going to have to make a huge investment in time, since that won't be productive farmland for years. Not to mention that you're going to have to make a tremendous investment in machinery to break the soil, till the land, etc.

Not to mention that you will have to build houses, outbuildings, and pay for the reestablishment of roads and other infrastructure. Little good it will do you to have a crop in ten years if you can't get it to market.

[niyad]

12. the NILE doesn't come in like a tsunami--what part of that is so hard to understand???

[Jakes Progress]

13. You have a great third grade view of how things work.

Why don't you leave this to the people who actually till and work the land.

The levee explosion was another in a long line of inept and clumsy attempts by the Corps to pretend they know what they are doing.

[hfojvt]

16. the internet is kinda funny that way

How there can be so many experts on the internet, so sure that they know so much more than people who actually have the degrees and are doing the jobs.

Like all of the doctors who are smacking their foreheads and saying "dang, why didn't I think to give the patient Nexium?"

[DCKit]

40. You assume much about me.

Unfortunately, you are wrong.

I was born and raised on a river, live on a river and couldn't live without water nearby.

And there's a reason they call the best farming land "river bottom".

But thanks for playing.

[Jakes Progress]

42. The word is deduce.

And nothing I deduced from your post was contradicted by your little fit here.

You still know very little about farming, about how the ebb and flow of the Nile affected the cyclical crop cycle in Egypt, about how Egypt and middle America are different. As for your living by a river, I know a man who lives right across the street from a library. He is the stupidest, most unread person I know, not counting the internet.

You shouldn't play if you don't know how.

[DCKit]

43. The flooding after Hurricane Agnes deposited 6"-24" of "sand and silt" up and down...

the Susquehanna valley. The following year, everyone I know of had bumper crops, and nobody didn't plant their fields or bemoan the lack of soil fertility. Many farmers along the Susquehanna count on those floods. Pretty much the same for the historic Red River floods from a few years back.

Where I was born, the waters rose over 50', thanks to the mountain on the other side of the river. Our house, high on the second of two embankments had a foot of "sand and silt" on the attic (3rd) floor. Grandma, Grandpa and all their neighbors planted their gardens, as usual, the next summer. There was no wailing. Nor when it flooded again in '75.

Additionally, y'all seem to be assuming that the velocity of the waters from the breach(es) is going to be equal everywhere the water goes. Except that both the force and velocity are diminished as the water spreads out. Try it with a garden hose sometime. But I guess it takes a third grader to know that.

Finally, you can disagree with anyone without being offensive or bullying. It's ugly. I won't alert, because what you've said, and the way you say it, should serve as a lesson to everyone who reads this thread. You are not a nice person.

[Jakes Progress]

44. Golly. You need to stop.

You don't know what you are talking about. You are not a farmer. You do not know how soils work. You do not understand. Please stop embarrassing yourself.

You seem hurt that I pointed out that you don't know things. You feel bullied. You think that my reply was not nice. I think your callous disregard for the people who grow the food you eat and you casual and wholly stupid statement about Egypt was not nice. You were very rude to people who are worried about their livelihood for the next few years. So, I think you are not a nice person. Should I alert on you?

[buddysmellgood]

7. What was the alternative?

[MadHound]

9. Like I originally stated, blow the south end of the levee,

Allow the waters to gently rise, instead of rushing in like a roaring tumult. Gently rising waters would have saved buildings, road, and other infrastructure. Gently rising waters wouldn't have carried in thousands of tons of silt and sand, which will render the fields infertile for years.

But I guess the Corp. simply wanted to create a big spectacle.

[madrchsod]

10. moving the town....

shawneetown,illinois upstream from cairo was moved in 1937 due to constant flooding by the ohio river. there is no reason why cairo shouldn`t be moved to higher ground. there`s towns in illinois and wisconsin that were moved to higher ground due to constant flooding.

[luvspeas]

8. I grew up around there...

I really don't understand they are sacrificing some of the most fertile farmland in the world for an area with such a small population. According to wikipedia, Cairo has a population of less than 3,000. Alexander county has a population of less than 10,000. I know this might sound callous to the people losing their homes, but wouldn't it be better to compensate and relocate them somehow? With California and Texas in horrible drought conditions, wasting any useable farmland seems insane.

[MadHound]

11. I wouldn't be so pissed if they had blown the south end of the levee,

But the Corp blew the north end, the worst possible option. And now those farmers are paying a huge price, their farms rendered infertile, their houses and homes destroyed.

It makes no sense.

[izquierdista]

17. Maybe they should do both

Move Cairo AND increase the fallow floodplains. Sometimes you just can't build or farm right to the river's edge. You may get away with it for 5 or 10 or even 20 good years, but the river WILL flood, and it WILL take everything that you spent 5 or 10 or 20 years building. That's the capitalist's gamble though -- can I invest my money and get out with a quick return before calamity strikes? Government needs to step in and regulate and keep people from speculating against the rise of the river for their own good. People out west, where rivers are more seasonal seem to have a better grasp on this. The Rio Grande in Albuquerque and the Los Angeles river in the San Fernando valley look like mere trickles compared to the amount of flood plain set aside for them.

[MadHound]

22. Umm, these farms weren't built right to the river's edge, there was a big ass levee in the way,

One that had protected those farms for generations, even during the '93 Flood, when the rest of the state was drowning.

It wasn't an act of nature that is causing this destruction, but rather an act of man.

[RC]

19. Until you have been in the Red River Valley in North Dakotas, you don't know what fertile is.

Black top soil 6 to 8 feet deep.

Flooding is what happens when you pave over nature and dump the water in the river, instead of letting it soak in.
Also building dikes on the natural flood plain to keep the river contained causes flooding up stream.
Draining the fields in the spring doesn't not help the situation any at all.
This is another case where we did it to ourselves.

[MadHound]

23. Then you know what kind of farmland we're talking about here,

It is some of the most fertile land in the country. But no longer, and it won't be fertile for a long time to come.

[progressoid]

39. Luckily the Red River never floods

Oh wait...

[Gidney N Cloyd]

14. It does seem like a lot of damage done to save what is essentially a ghost town.

[ensho]

18. its terrible - I feel for the farmers - the food that will not be grown

for us all and our animals

think of all the toxins that are in the fields now

[Buns_of_Fire]

20. The Army Corps of Engineers has a pretty sorry reputation -- most of it, deserved.

Reference Hurricane Katrina, for the obvious example. They pretty much destroyed the ecosystem of south Florida and the Everglades with their levees and locks to bottle up the overflow from Lake Okechobee, for another.

And now this. So much for the rehabilitation of what was left of their reputation.

(Uh, that's Lake OKEECHOBEE; lived in south Florida for 20 years -- you'd think I'd know how to spell it by now.)

[MadHound]

24. Another effect of this madness is the decrease in revenue this presents,

To an already cash strapped state. We're talking about millions of dollars in revenue, gone, at least temporarily, and perhaps forever.

Oh, and who is going to be footing the bill for cleanup and repair? The Feds? The State? Who?

[Hassin Bin Sober]

25. Just give the farmers more subsidies so *some* of them can bitch about liberals ..

... and construct billboards calling Democrats "parasites"

[MadHound]

27. Oh yeah, let's condemn people to a destruction because of their politics,

Aren't you the kind and compassionate one. If that is what it means to be a Democrat, I'm glad I'm not one.

First of all, apparently you can't read, subsidies won't work because these farmers won't be able to work their fields for years. No farming, no subsidies, get it? Not to mention that the loss of tax revenue in this state is going to hurt us, liberal and conservative.

But just keep it up with your smarmy ass, insensitive, mean spirited remarks, just keep it up laughing boy. Perhaps you will change your smart ass tune when food prices rise because of this tragedy.

Remember, not everything is about politics. Oh, and remember something else laughing boy, NO FARMERS, NO FOOD!

[Hassin Bin Sober]

28. LOL. Didn't I just see you in another thread being all "insensitive" about a kid getting killed by..

... by a bear and claiming his family won the "lawsuit lottery".

LOL

[MadHound]

29. Ah, so your mentality is one of tit for tat,

Never mind that I didn't make fun of that family, just thought they were very foolish. What is your excuse for being an ass? Accident at birth?

You are willing to condemn hundred because of their politics, show me once where I condemned a single person because of their politics. Huge difference.

[RegieRocker]

30. His response was justified, yours wasn't. Look in the mirror.

[MadHound]

31. Again, show me any post of mine where I laugh at somebody's misfortune because of their politics

I'll be waiting, for a long, long while.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

33. Why don't YOU show where I laughed at the farmers for their politics.

[MadHound]

35. It's right here, on this thread, for the whole world to see,

Unless you decide to edit it.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

36. Why don't you copy and paste it.

Or admit you flew off the handle with a hissy fit.

[MadHound]

37. What, you can't read it upthread?

The rest of us can.

Why don't you simply admit that you did engage in an assholish post, that you condemned these people because of their politics.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

38. You need to copy and paste it so we all know what YOUR bizarro definition of "condemn" is.

I merely said give them subsidies so "SOME" of them can bitch about what parasites Democrats are.

Tell me which part condemned ALL the farmers. Am I condemning the inevitable rethugs among the bunch that will later scream "get your government hands off my farm subsidies" ? Maybe. I thought I was being cynical.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

32. Thanks for the reality check.

I thought I entered bizarro world. I never "condemned" the farmers - cynical yes, condemn no. By the way, I'm all for subsidies to pay the farmers not to farm the damaged land. I just KNOW *some* of them will run their mouths about how Democrats are parasites while collecting farm subsidies.

edit: spelling condemn

[MadHound]

34. If that is your reality, then it is a rather twisted and sad one

Your entire span of posts here is nothing but condemnation of those farmers, simply for their political leanings.

But now that you've been called on your assholish behavior, you're trying to backpedal. Sadly typical.

[unkachuck]

41. when Missouri....

....has one of their Senators elected President, they can let Cairo flood....

....President Obama; just takin' care of business....