Technologys Impact on the Upper Mississippi River Essay

Technologys Impact on the Upper Mississippi River Since the days of Lewis and Clark men have dreamed of harnessing the Father of Waters in the interests of commerce and development. The long struggle which ensued required incredible ingenuity and determination on the part of engineers as well as enormous capital investment. The Mississippi River Commission, established in 1897, was the first federal program designed specifically to meet these requirements, and early systems, instituted by the Army Corps of Engineers, saw much success. Technological advancements in the fields of transportation, flood control, and natural resource management were needed and, eventually, emerged to provide the level of control possible today. This†¦show more content†¦Army Corps of Engineers, 1996]. Faster and more powerful ships, as impressive as they were, solved only half of the problem. Old Man River himself still remained to be dealt with. Mark Twain, one of the rivers most famous folk heroes, described the Mississippi as, the crookedest river in the world, riddled with rocks, stumps, and snags eager to trap an unsuspecting steamboat especially if the water was low [1917]. Twain, as a cub-pilot, understood the rivers dangers as did the United States Congress who commissioned the Army Corps of Engineers to begin river improvements in the 1830s. Removing stumps, snags, and other hazards to navigation was the first action taken by the Corps. The remaining problem, that of the rivers depth, required a much more intricate plan. The plan involved both deepening the rivers channel and regulating its flow rate. As late as 1866, the Mississippi was so shallow in places that a person could wade across it. The Corps of Engineers was assigned to increase the channel depth to a four-foot minimum from Minneapolis to St. Louis. Before they had finished, Congress raised the requirement to four and a half feet. Twice more Congress upped the ante and in 1930, the Rivers and Harbors Act called for the present nine-foot minimum channel depth. Achieving the necessary nine-foot depth required dredging shallow spots and stabilizing the shoreline with rock and concrete to slow theShow MoreRelatedInstructor Manual37126 Words   |  149 Pagesmight give a better idea of the results of buffalo hunting to jump ahead seven years to 1878, when Bill Tilghman, Bat Masterson, and I went buffalo hunting for sport. We traveled due west from Dodge City more than one hundred miles along the Arkansas River, south to the Cimmarron, and east to Crooked Creek again, at the height of the best hunting season over what in 18 71 had been the greatest buffalo ground in the world. Grass was as plentiful and as succulent as ever, but we never saw a buffalo. TheRead MoreStephen P. Robbins Timothy A. Judge (2011) Organizational Behaviour 15th Edition New Jersey: Prentice Hall393164 Words   |  1573 PagesThis page intentionally left blank Organizational Behavior EDITION 15 Stephen P. Robbins —San Diego State University Timothy A. Judge —University of Notre Dame i3iEi35Bj! Boston Columbus Indianapolis New York San Francisco Upper Saddle River Amsterdam Cape Town Dubai London Madrid Milan Munich Paris Montreal Toronto Delhi Mexico City Sao Paulo Sydney Hong Kong Seoul Singapore Taipei Tokyo Editorial Director: Sally Yagan Director of Editorial Services: Ashley Santora AcquisitionsRead MoreContemporary Issues in Management Accounting211377 Words   |  846 Pagesfulfil these roles in the coming years. In part this reflects a more general decline in the academic world as falling relative salaries and status have reduced the intake of talented academic entrepreneurs. But I also think it reflects the cumulative impact of regulatory and careerist pressures in the academic world itself. With government agencies pressing for ever more standardized and conventional research and with increasingly instrumental careerist vi FOREWORD behaviour by academics, there