The Mississippi River Crisis Explained

Play War Thunder for FREE and receive a massive Bonus Pack if you sign up today through my link:

The problems of the Mississippi River are all over the news. One day it's flooding, the other it's drying. Salt water is intruding in the river's delta, the water is contaminated. What's going on?! It turns out... a classic man against nature story. Enjoy the video!

FULL TRANSCRIPT + SOURCES:

MAIN SOURCES:

Mississippi River Commission (US Army Corps of Engineers):

Mississippi River – a Cultural Treasure (American Rivers):

Letting the River Run (The Nature Conservancy):

#MississippiRiver

[thomaschampion]

I am 60 years old and lived in Memphis tn most of my life. the Mississippi river has been so low at times in the 70's you could damn near walk across it. it does this all the time. every year its either over the banks or almost dry. this river will never dry up all the way. it all depends on the rain in the northern states that have small rivers that run into the river. also every one of the great lakes would have to dry up before the Mississippi river would come close to drying up forever. that's not going to happen.

[charlesward]

The issue is NOT what happens IN the stream, but what happens adjacent to the stream. The amount of impermeable surfaces including, roofs, parking lots, streets and sidewalks in the basin has more than DOUBLED in the last 40 years, preventing infiltration into shallow aquifers that slowly feed the stream during late summer and fall, and instead immediately dumping snow melt and precipitation into a channel that is not designed to handle those peak flows in the spring and early summer.

[northerncaptain]

Interesting video, as a Sea Captain I’ve routinely taken large ocean going ships up the Mississippi as far as Baton Rouge. The River is an incredible asset which was and is instrumental to the successful development and prosperity of the United States.

[ronkirk]

Not only is agricultural runoff, industry and city discharges killing the Mississippi, but it is killing 100's of square miles of the Gulf of Mexico also due to eutrophication. The delta marshes are also being starved of the silt it needs to overcome storm erosion. I canoed the whole river once and the lower river below St. Louis two more times by rowing/sailing dingy and kayak.

[chrisconklin]

Thank you for this presentation. It is the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, TVA, and the Bureau of Reclamation that manage the watershed. You did not mention the system of upstream reservoirs that are used to, given adequate rainfall, seasonally even out the waterflow. The 1927 floods forced the Army Corp to change philosophy from just Levee building to include upstream water management. Thanks also about mentioning rewilding efforts.

[frederickjeremy]

Just watched this video while sitting on a towboat in the Mississippi river in New Orleans. I was in the floods in ioway last year, we sat for 2.5 weeks waiting for the water to come down to a level the locks were operable, seems a month or two later i was having to pump all our wash and drinking water overboard so we could get light enough draft to get up into the lock system above Saint Louis from the lower.

[lynnwood]

As my college Geology Professor explained in 1976, "we have changed the Mississippi River channel from a vast wetland through which a river flowed, into a fast running sewer."

[brandonmccain]

I live at the mouth, the river delta in lower Plaqueminss Parish in a little town called Buras right along side the levee/ River. Its a river, it is always rising and lowering, it has went up recently but was low for a while which is prime fishing time. Storm surges push the river high lose to the the levee crown more than anything else.

[dougtruesdell]

You left out another problem - silting. Every year nearly an inch of silt drops onto the backwaters. The dams reduce the movement of this silt, and it settles everywhere along the way. The river is becoming a navigation channel from Minneapolis to Saint Louis.

[Rob_aka_CancelProof]

4:59 news flash you shouldn't build in a floodplain I know it's already been cleared of large trees and such and it's nice and flat and smooth but don't let that make you think that that's a good place to build because there's a reason it's that way and even somebody with no experience in such things can with just a precursory assessment can easily figure out why

[davidpaul]

Growing up in Minneapolis, MN. I've enjoyed wahtcthing the river. I've waded across at Lake Itasca as well as other places. The Mississippi is so different in the southern part. When I traveled south of of MN it, is so different. The addition of the the Ohio and Missouri changes everything. There are no easy answers. We can't control nature.

[thefpvlife]

We spend billions to search for water on other planets yet we pollute our own. omg

[StainlessSteelPolish]

MN resident here. The Mississippi is the main artery of commerce in the Twin Cities and dozens of surrounding communities. I often feel like people look at nature as a thing to be used. This outlook on nature eventually applies to the way we look at our fellow humans, as we are all a part of nature.

[NicoA]

Humanity’s urge to conquer everything spins the real problem. The Mississippi does this, and we try to stop it, but it keeps on doing what it did before us and will do after us. We try to prevent it and call it a disaster when the expected outcome happens

[DasDutchman]

The Mississippi River has always been up or down.

[BaconatorV]

i swear the way he says "with hindsight" at the start of the video is making it iconic

[lynnwood]

Meanwhile, the small wetlands, potholes, rain lakes are tiled and drained, these natural sponges which hold water and allow the aquifers to recharge now dried out, their water carried away to flow downstream

[carlyleporter]

Weather has happened since the beginning of time. All weather troubles cannot be attributed to 6lobal warming.

[johnmcnulty]

The Missouri River is really the main channel and drainage of a large swath of the Rocky Mountains.

[Nosensev]

Found your channel recently, nice content!