What Next?

[Wayne SW/MO]

If memory serves me right the towns and people were there before the dams they may have thought the dams would offer some protection from flooding.

[Al Agnew]

Yep, record flooding is already happening in Montana, and it's still snowing in the high country. The high country snows haven't really even begun to melt yet. Snowpack in the Yellowstone watershed is greater right now than it was in the record Yellowstone River floods more than a decade ago. And it's the same all over the upper Missouri watershed. The Mississippi hasn't seen the last of the flooding yet by any means.

Wayne, those dams were built partly for flood control, but I think we're finding out once again that flood control structures are far from 100% effective, and floodplains are still floodplains. And people are finding out once again that building in a floodplain, even in once supposedly protected from floods, is a gamble that at some point you're likely to lose.

[flytyer57]

Dumb? Why do you think they spent all that money building the dams? I got a flash for you if you think it was to create trout habitat.

The dams were built to prevent flooding downstream. Funny how they keep those lakes so full that when it rains, they fill to over capacity so fast, which defeats the purpose of having them.

Anyone with half a brain would know rivers flood. Anyone with half a brain would know that those dams have spillways for a reason. Anyone with half a brain would know that those rivers below a dam could flood at any time in stuations like this. Anyone with half a brain would not build so close to a river, just because they could.

As for you Phil, you run a business on the river serving that river. I'm sure that if you did not do so, you would not have built on the river. I've seen the news reports showing the flooding along the river, and I've seen your videos of the river here on OAF. Most of those homes would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to build. It's not like those homes are the homes of the poor hillbillies who were there long before the dams. Those homes were built there only because those people had the money to do so and because it would be so nice to have a home along the river.

[jdmidwest]

I thought the White River system of dams were created primarily for generation of electricity. The pools are kept full so they have plenty of capacity to generate.

[Al Agnew]

It could be argued that the dams were built to provide jobs, enhance local real estate values, and keep the Corps of Engineers busy and relevant, if you want to be unkind about it. But the COE usually designed them to do as many things as possible, to justify spending the money to build them. So yes, flood control was a large part of the "benefits" touted for the dams, and indeed they were all part of a master plan to control flooding along the lower Mississippi, not just on the lower White. Problem from the point of view of the Corps at the time was that they didn't get to build ALL the dams they had planned. A few more dams on the Current, the Buffalo, the Eleven Point, and the Spring River, and they would have had that lower White pretty well protected, they thought. A few more dams on the rest of the Ozark streams and they'd have been able to hold water back that would otherwise be flooding the Mississippi, etc.

So that didn't work out. So the existing dams USUALLY protect from floods, but not in an extraordinary series of rain events like we've had this year. And the inevitable conflicts between the multiple uses of the dams make them less than ideal flood protectors, as others have stated. When you get right down to it, with a true flood control dam, the "lake" above would be kept dry until needed to hold back run-off. But you must have plenty of water behind it to use to generate electricity, you gotta have a nice lake for recreation and water supply and dilution of downstream pollution and all the other justifications the government and developers used in convincing Congress to build these things.

[tjulianc]

It could be argued that the dams were built to provide jobs, enhance local real estate values, and keep the Corps of Engineers busy and relevant, if you want to be unkind about it. But the COE usually designed them to do as many things as possible, to justify spending the money to build them. So yes, flood control was a large part of the "benefits" touted for the dams, and indeed they were all part of a master plan to control flooding along the lower Mississippi, not just on the lower White. Problem from the point of view of the Corps at the time was that they didn't get to build ALL the dams they had planned. A few more dams on the Current, the Buffalo, the Eleven Point, and the Spring River, and they would have had that lower White pretty well protected, they thought. A few more dams on the rest of the Ozark streams and they'd have been able to hold water back that would otherwise be flooding the Mississippi, etc.

So that didn't work out. So the existing dams USUALLY protect from floods, but not in an extraordinary series of rain events like we've had this year. And the inevitable conflicts between the multiple uses of the dams make them less than ideal flood protectors, as others have stated. When you get right down to it, with a true flood control dam, the "lake" above would be kept dry until needed to hold back run-off. But you must have plenty of water behind it to use to generate electricity, you gotta have a nice lake for recreation and water supply and dilution of downstream pollution and all the other justifications the government and developers used in convincing Congress to build these things.

And don't forget drinking water. If the lakes were drawn down in the winter in anticipation of spring flooding, and then below average spring rains occur, and then the normal hot and dry summers come, well then we wouldn't have any water. Especially when homes and businesses like to water their lawns and gardens with drinking water. In some towns in NWA in 2006 during a summer drought, people caught watering their lawns got a warning, if they got caught again they would get their water shut off. I'm sure the COE feels they are darned if the do, darned if they don't.

[Phil Lilley]

Great points, Al.

[Wayne SW/MO]

It was always my understanding that the White river dams were built to control flooding in the lower White river delta, a particularly rich and valuable agriculture area. While they didn't give a lot of attention to the towns, Forsyth for instance, in the 40's there is no reason that people today shouldn't expect to be protected the majority of the time. You can't generate electricity, something we use a lot of in hot weather, without the power pool being intact. It takes a lot of force to push water through the generators and that only comes from adequate depth of the water above them.

These people have a brain and understand the risks and if attention is paid to the majority, people would learn that most accept it. They aren't questioning Mother Nature but the hand of man.

Flytier it would appear that in your thinking all would be abandon because even roads can be washed away. The fact that the news services naturally seek out the sensational doesn't mean that the bulk of the native residents don't understand the consequences of living in areas prone to flood, tornadoes, earthquakes, and droughts. I suspect that many in this area might question why someone would live in Wisconsin and put up with large amounts of snow and bone chilling cold.

[flytyer57]

People choose to live where they do for a number of reasons. But we are not talking about cold and snow or heat and humidity here. We are talking about the rivers.

Even in Wisconsin there are dumbies who build their homes on the edges of rivers and lakes.

Why do they build there? Because they can. They could have just as easily built their homes up the bank a little higher and probably never get flooded. But no, they have to live on the banks of the rivers.

The year I moved down here, there was major flooding in Waukesha County due to the snow melt and rain. Most of the lakes there have no drainage. They are seepage lakes, where the water fills the lakes from springs or are mostly rain and snow melt filled. There are no dams and very few outlets for the water. When I sold my boat, I took it to one of these lakes to run the motor for the friend I sold it to. The lakes were so full, they had to put no wake restrictions on the lakes. Most of the homes around this lake were built 5-10 feet above the normal lake levels. The water was very high and all of the homes built below that 5 foot mark were flooding. Those near the 5 foot mark were prone to flooding from boat wakes. To me, these people did not have to build their homes on the lake like that. They only did it because they could. To me, that is being DUMB.

Water rises, and if you build too close to it...

[Wayne SW/MO]

I'm still not getting your point or who the recipients of your demeaning comments are. I believe the vast majority of those building below dams understand the consequences, but they don't make up the whole. There are people for instance who made investments at the Lake of the Ozarks who weren't in any danger of flooding, then they built Truman. While Truman can't dump water like our lakes can, a failure would be catastrophic for the areas downstream. I know there are few who don't think it threw and are surprised, but they aren't dumb either, they just didn't think it would ever happen. There are countless numbers of us who were born here following centuries of ancestors, they survived floods and tornadoes, so I guess the belief that I can is inherited.

I suppose we can assume you live well above the altitude that a dam failure would endanger, but sadly there just isn't room at the top of the hill for everyone or apparently the intelligence level either, at least in your mind.