Op-ed: Since '93 Midwestern flood, climate change has made conditions worse

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Commentary: The 1993 Midwestern flood teaches us that an ad hoc approach to flood management is ineffective. We need government coordination.

Flooding along a levee bordering the Mississippi River, right, at the Illinois border in Ralls County, Missouri, on May 15, 2019.Flooding and soaring temperatures across the nation have made global warming indisputable. The problem, as always, is how to reach political consensus on an action plan. Republicans want to plant a “trillion” trees; Democrats want to limit carbon emissions.

“With all these floods, you may ask yourself what has been done to maintain our region’s level of flood protection during this time? Amazingly, almost nothing,” Mike Klingner, chair of the Upper Mississippi, Illinois & Missouri Rivers Association, said in a statement. “Weather has changed; we’re getting more water; our levees are less safe than when originally built in the ’50s,” Maiers said.

“More levees, more wing dams, more rain and more snowmelt equals a torrent of water making its way from Minnesota southward to Illinois and beyond. With natural floodplains blocked, the water is funneled farther south, spilling out where it finds openings — often in the unprotected territory or whereA farmer drives through floodwater surrounding his property in Annada, Missouri, nearly 4 miles from the usual banks of the Mississippi River on May 14, 2019.

 

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