THE PUBLIC MIND: THE GREAT FLOOD OF 1993: EXACTLY WHO IS TO BLAME?

Not soon to be forgotten, the great flood of 1993 will be remembered as the most devastating and costly catastrophe the Midwest had ever endured. For most, interest in the flood was generated by curiosity; others were not so fortunate. However, even the least benevolent must agree: the outpouring of human altruism during this event was impressive -- from volunteer sandbaggers to relief organizers.

The river is now receding and the news media has mostly deserted the flooded small towns and farm fields. Now we pick up the pieces, divvy up recovery money that doesn't really exist, and start pointing fingers of blame. And who or what is to blame? Can we suffice to say it was the will of God? Or, do we hold Mother Nature at fault -- for she seems to have a temper? I think not. Humans have a tendency to find excuses and blame others for problems they have created. This flood, and the blame, is no different.

I think back to 1973, the last great flood of all time. The peak volume of water carried by that flood was greater than in this flood. But the flood of 1993 broke more levees and rose to record high levels. It seems intuitively wrong, but not really when one thinks about it. What was our immediate response to the 1973 flood? The answer: build more levees. Build them higher and longer. Later, we became lucky, no great floods occurred for 20 years. So, we built in the "protected" floodplain. More homes, more roads, more industry. We kept taking from the river what it must physically have to function: it's floodplain.

In many places, our rivers have been reduced to monotonous, narrowed channels unable to produce significant quantities of precious resources our ancestors enjoyed. But, humans seem to like monocultures -- we do it with our crops. We even do it to ourselves by gradually persecuting human races to near extinction in the name of supremacy or Christianity. We may be able to dominate other humans but we will learn in the end, we can't dominate the environment.

so the river, with a watershed of monotonous fields and a channel with unnatural constrictions, knows only the laws of physics -- it is not so elastic as we humans are. When it rains, water pours off land devoid of a sponge of natural vegetation and rushes into ditches too small to carry the load. The result: devastation and loss of life. All of which could have been avoided by using common sense and doing away with human greed.

What should we do? The answer seems clear to me. Building more and higher levees only exacerbates the problem. It gives people a false sense of security, that we can hold the river at bay;. It also could potentially put more stress on existing levees increasing the probability of breakage and catastrophe. We must understand that levees don't control flooding, they simply move the water to different places. But, we need levees. We need to protect important urban and cultural centers, but we don't need to protect all bottom ground. What is an alternative solution? Give back a little of what we have unjustly taken: the river's floodplains. This makes sense for-several reasons: l) levees are expensive to build and maintain, by reducing the number and mileage of levees, taxpayers save money; 2) the government subsidizes crops grown in floodplains at the same time we pay farmers not to grow crops elsewhere. The government also finds ways to bail out the uninsured and rebuild homes in the very same places where floods can be expected to occur regularly. Government is poor business; and 3) we can use the river's natural flood pulse to enrich our bottom ground soils. With a little ingenuity, some areas can be allowed to flood at certain stages whereby silt can be deposited and bigger crops can be raised during no-flood years.

Eight of the ten greatest floods on the middle Mississippi River have occurred in the last 30 years. That seems to correlate well with increased miles of levees and disturbance of the watershed. It is time people wake up. Who's to blame? It's people, not God, not Mother Nature, just you and me and everyone else. And only you and me and others can fix the problem -- if we want to. Let's not waste billions of dollars fixing levees and building where we don't belong. Let's not listen to the same old song and dance by politicians saying they can throw our money at the problem to fix it. We can't afford another flood of 1993.

Bob Hrabik

Jackson