The Mighty Mississippi to Run Dry?

theTrumpet.com ^ | August 7, 2012 | Robert Morley

[norwaypinesavage]

Lewis and Clark started with their canoes in NY state and went down to the Ohio river. They took the Ohio to the Mississippi, and then up to the Missouri river. They paddled the Missouri and its tributaries upstream to Idaho. This is all the Mississippi river watershed. Some years it gets more rain than average, some years it gets less. The Mississippi just keeps on rollin’ along.

[arrdon]

Guess someone pulled a giant plug in the atmosphere allowing all the moisture content to leak out? Same amount of water today as we had at the beginning, half-wit.

[Ditter]

This time last year the high pressure was centered on Texas and we were burning up, literally on fire. Our lakes and rivers were drying up, our water supply was low. This year it is centered farther north and the middle of the country is burning up.

Texas got rain, they will too.

[Venturer]

In the spring there will be flooding in the Mississippi same as every year.

That Mississippi has had low water before and will have it again.

There is nothing humans can do about it anyway. It is up to God to set the level of the Mississippi.

[reagan_fanatic]

The real question is how much money will Obama start throwing at it?

Of course, he could just stand on the banks, stretch out his staff and bring forth the waters.

[redtetrahedron]

I clicked on that link and I was blocked for ‘online-gambling’...

[DoughtyOne]

Here’s where I’m coming from. If you’ll listen to the reports of drought, you’ll note that they generally say, this is the driest it’s been in fifty years, or something like that.

Okay, that means that fifty years ago, it was worse than it is now.

I know what is happening now is hard on people who live in the region. I’m not trying to say it isn’t. It’s just that I don’t think it’s wise to attribute this to some global meltdown.

[DoughtyOne]

Thank you Errant. I’ll check it out.

[DoughtyOne]

That’s terrible. It’s amazing the storms that do come up seem to miss you. Sorry to hear it.

I hope it ends soon.

[DoughtyOne]

I think their big play was convincing the global cooling folks into switching to be global warming nuts.

Your comments are right on IMO.

[DoughtyOne]

That’s pretty much my take too. I’m sure that some of the folks that depend on it are having a hard time. That is a sad thing.

[okie01]

Tom Allegretti, president of the American Waterways Operators, reports that it would take 130 semitrucks or 570 rail cars to haul the freight unloaded by one large barge grouping under those conditions.

Really? It takes over four railcars to carry the contents of one semi-trailer?

I can't imagine Allegretti got the numbers wrong. So, we're left with an ignorant reporter making a stupid mistake and reversing the numbers.

[HereInTheHeartland]

We are in a once a half a century drought; yes the river level will be low.
Also it was high last year downstream, due to record flows from the Missouri; so year to year comparisons would show a big difference.
Are all writers this lazy?

[Jeremiah Jr]

The great river... allegory?

Isaiah 18

4 This is what the Lord says to me: “I will remain quiet and will look on from my dwelling place, like shimmering heat in the sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”

5 For, before the harvest, when the blossom is gone and the flower becomes a ripening grape, he will cut off the shoots with pruning knives, and cut down and take away the spreading branches. 6 They will all be left to the mountain birds of prey and to the wild animals; the birds will feed on them all summer, the wild animals all winter.

7 At that time gifts will be brought to the Lord Almighty from a people tall and smooth-skinned, from a people feared far and wide, an aggressive nation of strange speech, whose land is divided by rivers — the gifts will be brought to Mount Zion, the place of the Name of the Lord Almighty.

[blam]

"If the world’s largest navigable river system goes dry, the economic consequences will be felt around the world. "

I've read that the output of the Amazon River is much larger than the next ten largest rivers in the world combined. The Mississippi is just a 'puppy' compared to the Amazon.

[blam]

"Are all writers this lazy? "

Sensationalism sells.

[clee1]

I grew up in Baton Rouge....

Avondale Shipyards are near New Orleans, some 100 river miles south of the H. P. Long bridge.

Trust me... deep draft vessels cannot get north of Baton Rouge. Huey Long did that on purpose.

[ScubieNuc]

I know what is happening now is hard on people who live in the region. I’m not trying to say it isn’t. It’s just that I don’t think it’s wise to attribute this to some global meltdown.

I agree.

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks ScubieNuc.

[Errant]

For such a time as this . . . .

I'm afraid so. :(