The Mississippi River System

Throughout history the Mississippi river has been notorious as being one of the most powerful and iconic river systems in the United States as it stretches from its initial source in Lake Itasca, MN, all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico, carving and cutting paths both old and new as well as periodically wreaking havoc along the way. Since the dawn of mankind it has been traditional that early civilizations migrate towards bodies of water and begin settlement as rivers, lakes, and streams can provide multiple uses and benefits. To the early Mid-American settlers the Mississippi River was most notably one of their key resources for survival and economic prosperity. Transportation of goods and resources along with easily accessible irrigation
for crops were the two of the most important uses of early settlers. There was, however, one very significant drawback to the seemingly utopian environment that could reappear at almost any time of the year, and cause massive financial losses and sweep away years worth of crops and agriculture. Flooding is one of the most powerful natural forces in nature that can show up seemingly without notice in some cases, and leave a path of destruction as well as enlightenment in that those that occupy certain regions along the river that are subject to flooding can take proper measures to be better prepared for future floods and/or vacate the area and live in an area free of flooding. Through early settlement flooding and damages associated with them began to accumulate substantial damages, causing a need for a solution to mitigate the waters and destruction, this is where levees began for the Mississippi river, often termed the first and last defense against flooding. Natural levees existed due to erosion and related fluvial processes of the river system but were a mere one to two meters in height which somewhat aided in the flooding problem but was not substantial enough to solve the issue. Man-made levees were inevitably bound to happen at this point as the need for an alternative solution was apparent as it was evident that the naturally formed levees would ultimately provide minimal relief from flooding. 1717 saw the first construction of a levee by man located along the lower portion of the river in a town called Bienville, which would later be known as New Orleans. Full completion of the initial levee was not until 1727 which in total reached 5,400 feet in length, 18 feet in width at the crown, which is the very top of the levee, stood a mere 4 feet high, and had a slope ratio of one to two. The first attempts by man to contain the waters of the Mississippi proved to be successful in that initially the damage from the occasional rising water levels seemed to be held under control along the nearly mile long region where the first levee was placed.
By 1743 French landowners occupying property along the river were required to construct and maintain their own levees along the areas they occupied in order to help minimize rising water damage as a whole, or be forced to give up their land to the French crown as a sort of incentive per say. As one could imagine the near primitive design and structure of the earthen levees proved unsuccessful as the unprotected sediments of the levees eventually eroded in the fast moving waters of the Mississippi, causing constant maintenance and repairs to the levees leading to expenses that far outweighed the partial benefits. Adding to the already obvious financial displacement these levees provided, large floods proved too much for these levees to handle over time as aside from erosion, the river would often break through the weakened points in the levees, known as crevasses. Many of these crevasses caused almost as much damage as the initial untamed river due to people relying too heavily upon them to work error free and placing houses or crops within feet of the levee only to have them destroyed when the water would breach through the crevasses. Federal 'support' was temporarily given in 1849 as the creation of the Swamp Land
Acts first came about as a way to effectively drain the lowlands surrounding known areas of flooding around the river. The idea behind the Swamp Land Acts was that the state of Louisiana would be given all land deemed unfit for farming and/or cultivation, and then allow the public to purchase these lands in order to provide funding to construct higher, stronger levees and drainage basins around these low lying with hopes to reclaim them. Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, and Mississippi followed the same pattern in the second Swam Land Act, although it too seemed to be a bit of a long shot in trying to solve the flooding problem. Naturally, lack of coordination and structural integrity issues between levee districts and states ended with the presumed solution for the flooding and reclamation of low lands in overall failure.
The seemingly dismantled levee system that was said to be the answer for the wrath of the river was over time assigned to the Army Corps of Engineers to propose alternative and much more effective means of suppressing the effects of the river as the previous solution had grown almost obsolete.
In 1852, Congress called for two studies to be conducted related to minimizing the effects of flooding more efficiently and effectively. Aside from the two Army Corps Engineers, there was one civil engineer by the name of Charles Ellet Jr. who was assigned to conduct a study to help identify these aspects and methods from which could be applied to decrease river damage. The results of his study attributed to four overall factors that played major roles in the development of the river, one of them being that "the extension of the levees along the borders of the Mississippi, and of its tributaries and outlets, by means of which the water that was formerly allowed to spread over many thousand square miles of low lands is becoming more and more confined to the immediate channel of the river, and is therefore, compelled to rise higher and flow faster, until, under the increased power of the current, it may have time to excavate a wider and deeper trench to give vent to the increased volume which it conveys." (Kemp 2000). Other findings from Ellet included the effect of increased cultivation, manmade cutoffs, and the lengthening of the delta, which can all play a major role in increasing
flood probability, which during this era, especially in the humid south, farming was at one of its highest points resulting in farmers cultivating their soils and unknowingly increasing potential flood damages. Ellet concluded that "it is evident that each of these causes is likely to be progressive, and that the future floods throughout the length and breadth of the delta....are destined to rise higher as population adjacent to the river increases, and the inundated low lands appreciate in value" (Kemp 2000). Insightful and realistic as Ellet's theory may have been, his opinion was ignored and those opinions of the two Army Corps Engineers, Captain Andrew Humphreys and Lieutenant Henry Abbot became the staple for the following 140 years. From their study, Report Upon the Physics and Hydraulics of the Mississippi River, the duo came up with three main ideas in providing protection from floods, cutting off bends in the river, diverting tributaries and creating artificial reservoirs, and of course, creating a levee system. The reconstruction of levees was ultimately the choice to pursue as the alternative options were far too costly to complete, with their newly designed levees set to stand three to eleven feet above the recorded level from the 1858 flood. However, these newly reconstructed levees were of basically the same design as the previous, only they were built higher and were said to have been stronger but they too also saw failure as two iconic floods in 1867 and 1874 accumulated almost four million dollars of damage to the levees. The 1874 flood of the Mississippi was the last flood before the creation of the Mississippi River Levee Commission which was established by an act of congress in 1879 in order to survey the river system and conduct a plan for reclamation of the areas on the Mississippi that were known for being flood prone. Once again, new construction of another system of levees came about with the newest seeming to top the previous immensely, as the MRC (Mississippi River Commission) developed the 'Levees Only' policy in 1882. This new policy was similar to those brought forth before in that they only sought to refine the same levees, not completely redesign a new structure to try and solve the same problem that kept reoccurring, but basically fixing whatever broke time after time, accumulating more and more money to be spent on the annual repairs. Again and again flooding would periodically occur and do damage here or there causing more and more damage and expenses overall until the flood of 1890, when a total of 56 miles of levee were destroyed. As a result of the repetitive destruction the MRC again revised their standards to raise the height of the levees from 38 up to 46 feet in an attempt to ease the damages. In 1904 the first actual change in levee structure occurred in the design in that structural revetments were applied, which was a combination of concrete matting on the riverside to help with erosion, and sheet piling on the landside as a method of holding the levee in place. The concrete sheeting on these levees proved to be much stronger and efficient at diverting water and had few, small breaches as opposed to those associated with almost every flood before then.

Naturally, the newest improvements to the levees again ended up falling short, in colossal form during the iconic flood of 1927, the most destructive flood ever recorded on the lower Mississippi as it flooded an estimated 16.6 million acres, killed 500 people, and accumulated 102.6 million dollars in crop losses alone. 1928 was somewhat of a turning point in the control of flooding as the Federal Flood control act went into effect, housing the Army Corps of Engineers' newest addition in flood management named the Jadwin Plan, after Major General Edgar Jadwin who was at the time the Chief of the engineers so naturally the plan took on his name.