Will we ever learn?

This morning's Des Moines Register has a story about the "Dead Zone" at the mouth of the Mississippi. It says in part -

Scientists predict floodwaters that decimated river cities in the Midwest also will whack the Gulf of Mexico, pushing the so-called dead zone to a record size.

Researchers from Louisiana State University and the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium forecast the dead zone - an area that during summer doesn't have enough oxygen at depth to support marine life - will cover 10,084 square miles, an area about the size of Massachusetts.

The expected growth in the zone renews debate over soil conservation in the nation's breadbasket and whether farmers adding corn acres for the ethanol industry is a significant contributing factor.

Researchers such as Eugene Turner of LSU blame farmers and the ethanol industry, but an official of the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation disputes that contention, adding that corn acres are down in Iowa this year.

Since 1990, the dead zone off the coasts of Louisiana and Texas has averaged a shade over 6,000 square miles, depending largely on the flow of the Mississippi River. The area of low oxygen, or hypoxia, is caused by a large algae bloom fed by nitrogen and phosphorus from crop fertilizers, dead plants, lawn chemicals and sewage that run down the Mississippi.

When the algae die, they consume oxygen. That disrupts one of the world's most lucrative shrimp fisheries.

The flow in the Mississippi is up 75 percent from last year. Researchers expect nitrogen levels of water running into the Gulf will be 37 percent higher than last year, the highest on record. The forecast is based on nitrate measurements in the Mississippi at Baton Rouge.

"The intensive farming of more land, including crops used for biofuels, has definitely contributed to this high nitrogen loading," Turner said. "The prediction of a large hypoxic zone this summer is because the nitrate loading this May, a critical month influencing the size, was exceptionally high.

Floods have always been a problem. Noah dealt with one. A big one! The Ancient Egyptians had annual floods which replenished the thin strip of land on which they could grow crops. Wisely they built their Temples and monuments in the desert area away from the areas that were flooded.

"Until the Aswan High Dam was built, Egypt received a yearly inundation - an annual flood - of the Nile. The ancient Egyptians did not realise this, but the flood came due to the heavy summer rains in the Ethiopian highlands, swelling the different tributaries and other rivers that joined and became the Nile. This happened yearly, between June and September, in a season the Egyptians called akhet - the inundation. This was seen by the Egyptians as a yearly coming of the god Hapi, bringing fertility to the land.

Once that dam was built they no longer had the problems with floods but they now have new problems. The moisture build-up because of the dam is causing them to lose some of the beautiful tomb paintings and the fertility of the land must be kept up by fertilizing instead of by annual renewal by nature.

They even had problems with tragically losing cities to flooding.

Written records that document a major flood of the Nile in A.D. 741 to 742 provide a framework for dating the disappearance of the two cities. There are no major earthquakes documented for this period.

Significant flooding not only would cause the river banks to collapse, but also would bring heavy loads of sedimentation. This combined with the weight of the roiling water could have caused the soft, unstable mud on which the cities had been built to liquefy, Stanley and his colleagues argue in Volume 412 of the journal Nature.

The authors note that similar processes have occurred at the mouth of the Mississippi River.

"River mouths shift over time," Stanley explained. "It's been very common after bigger floods for the mouth of the Mississippi to change drastically. You have liquefaction, slumping riverbanks, and parts of land going up and down all over the place."

"Even offshore, two weeks after a major flood," he added, "you can have areas that were underwater suddenly above water and other areas that were above ground completely underwater."

The Egyptians learned from their experiences over time. They no longer built in areas that were subject to flooding. When you visit Egypt you can see the line between the green zone and the desert plainly. You also notice that they have their farms next to the Nile and their cities away from it.

It seems to me that we have an opportunity here to learn from Nature. For whatever reason we have experienced two major (500 year?) floods. We have thought that we could control the river with dams and levees but Nature seems to have had the final say. After all she did carve out the Grand Canyon (and others) with just the power of water. We seem to think that we do not have to live with the consequences of our actions.

When my ancestors came to Story County they unloaded their wagon from the train and were warned not to get "sloughed" - Thinking that it meant to get drunk they were offended and had to learn the hard way. After driving into an innocuous looking patch of what they thought was a puddle they found themselves axle deep in mud and had to be towed out of the slough. They learned. I later read that there aren't many Native American artifacts to be found in this area because it was a wetland area and they wisely did not put their homes here. Since that time we have tiled the land and created areas which were once natural habitat for many, many species of wildlife (Oh by the way on my way home last night a skunk ran out of the woods in front of my car - thankfully, I avoided hitting the little beauty.)

My questions to Iowans and those affected by the floods - Will you ever learn? Nature will win in the end. She is more powerful than a speeding bullet. She is able to leap tall buildings (or at least undermine them and make them uninhabitable) and she will always win. So would it not be better to recognize that and give up this stupid idea of "dominion" and realize that we are a part of that nature and then adjust so that we can live within it naturally without putting our homes in places where they will be swept away.

And while we are at it can't we practice good soil conservation to keep our top soil in Iowa instead of exporting it to a "Dead Zone" at the mouth of the Mississippi. I mean, come on people, When I was in high school Mr. Stockdale taught us about soil conservation and how to farm so that top soil will not run off. Can't we be good neighbors besides preserving our state's most valuable resource.

I know I have a pretty simplistic outlook on things but I really believe that we can learn from the errors of the past and that we can make changes that will preserve our land, our world and our way of life. If we are willing to learn the lessons right in front of our faces. ARTYAL, Hugs, jcs

Addendum - Marty just sent me this. It seems to fit right in.
The Mississippi's Hymn of Hate
By Phil Carspecken

“You have cramped me with levees, goaded me with dikes and harnessed me with dams. You have filched my beloved lowlands, where in spring, when the sap flowed and I exulted in the surge of awakening power, I ranged at will, expending my surplus energy in the manner Nature provided.
Your engineers like Vampires, have sucked dry my teeming swamplands and slumberous sloughs, where my fish have spawned, my wild fowl propagated and my fur bearing animals disported themselves unmolested. Where my muskrats burrowed and my bullfrogs boomed, you have erected pumping stations which have thrust back my wandering waters. To add a few paltry acres to the thousands available, you have conspired to encroach upon my rightful domain and ravish me of my playground. “Reclamation!” you have called it. Fools! That which never was rightfully yours cannot and shall not be reclaimed.

“Now, Damn you, suffer the penalty! Away with your plows and harrows and livestock, you bankrupt and tax-ridden tillers of stolen soil. Back to your highlands, you greedy despoilers of a river's bed! Run! You little men, who thought to restrain my swelling bosom with a band of earth! For I, the Mighty Mississippi , augmented by the power of my tributary streams, have arisen like an angry giant to throw off your shackles, silence your puny pumps and crumble your hated levees. Harken to the sullen roar which arises from my onrushing waters. 'Reclamation'! Is my cry, as I claw at your ramparts and thunder at your gates. Give back my lowlands! They are mine, damn you! MINE!