https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2150354923
Also reviewed on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

A number of years ago, I watched a documentary on television about the US Army Corps of Engineers, and their struggles to contain the Mississippi River. The Mississippi has changed course many times over its history, and right now it has its eye on a shortcut to the Gulf of Mexico. The Atchafalaya River begins just below Natchez, Mississippi, where it draws about 30% of the water in the Mississippi River and dumps it into the Gulf.

The Atchafalaya is a shorter and steeper route to the Gulf than the current Mississippi, and it is probably just a matter of time until it captures the full flow of the Mississippi. The net result? Among other consequences, Baton Rouge loses its river, and New Orleans loses its fresh water supply when the lower Mississippi becomes a Gulf estuary.

Armed with simulations, models, concrete, money and sheer determination, the Corps of Engineers is talked with stopping the change in the Mississippi. Given the nature of the river, it is probably a futile quest, and one that was made much more difficult by previous engineering projects on the river.

This book is the history of those efforts, and a look at the current situation.

=== The Good Stuff ===

* It seems like it should be a simple job- build a dam, and keep the Mississippi in its present river bed and flowing through New Orleans. But as anyone who has ever played civil engineer with spring runoff in the driveway knows, water has a mind of its own. And to further complicate matters, the Mississippi brings with it an incredible load of silt and mud, all of which can modify the river bed in unpredictable ways. James F. Barnett Jr. does a great job of explaining the complexities and consequences behind even minor changes to the river.

* The book begins with a history of previous projects on the river. Once you know what to look for, mankind’s tampering becomes evident, as the lower Mississippi is dotted with some very strange shaped lakes. What is not so obvious, and what Barnett explains very well, is how even a seemingly small change, such as straightening out an annoying bend in the river can drastically alter the silt flows, and cause major changes downstream. For example, the current pathway to the Atchafalaya from the Mississippi is mostly the result of a 19th century attempt to remove a particularly nasty bend in the river.

* The management of the Mississippi is a fascinating topic. There are major stakeholders everywhere. The city of New Orleans would be in a world of hurt if the lower Mississippi became a saltwater estuary, so it has an interest in keeping the river flow at a high level. But it also wants flood control, so it wishes that unusually high water be diverted. The only feasible path for that diversion is to send that water through the Atchafalaya basin…hoping that you manage to send just enough to keep the Mississippi flowing, but not flooding. But sending water through the Atchafalaya means the Corps of Engineers exercising “flowage rights of way”- a nice way of saying they reroute a river through your living room.

* Barnett does a masterful job of explaining how these issues are interconnected, the politics and interest groups behind them, and the actual mechanics and unknown risks of tampering with the river. The book can be a bit technical, but nothing too difficult to understand. And you certainly get a feel for the stakes and risks that the Corps of Engineers is playing for.


=== The Not-So-Good Stuff ===

* I was reading a draft galley, so this may have been corrected- but the book needs much better maps. The only ones included are hand-drawn sketches, and they were just insufficient for me to understand the subtleties of what was going on. Online maps were somewhat of a help, but sometimes a bit tough to line up historical names in the book with current names on map, and many features discussed in the book no longer exist.

* Again, it was a draft, but the version I was reading had no pictures. It was worth it to go out to the internet and find pictures of some of the structures being described. For example, the book refers to a “spillway”, designed to control the river at high water. Without a photo or two, you would probably not realize the author is talking about a 500 foot long, 50 foot high structure.

* The author writes in a somewhat understated tone. You have to work a bit to understand just how close the river came on one or two occasions to permanently switching course.


=== Summary ===

For some reason, this is a topic that has always interested me, and the book was a great way to better understand the problems and challenges. It is a very readable book, although it does take a little “homework’ to really appreciate what is going on. It is certainly simplified enough than anyone with even a passing interest can understand the technical arguments and explanations.

I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in the area, or even to anyone who likes to read of technical challenges and historical engineering projects-even if they didn’t know they were interested in them.