I am in Baton Rouge, Louisiana How do I know that? Because it is written in enormous letters on this levee just here. And this levee is on the Mississippi River, the most important river in America. Not just because of the amount of water that it moves, but because of the amount of cargo. Look at all these barges just here that are waiting to have whatever they are carrying moved to the container ports and to the factories that line this river for miles and miles and miles and miles. But here is a problem, and something you might not know. The Mississippi river doesn't want to be here anymore. You see about a century ago, in the age of steamboats there was a bend in the river about 80 miles away from here called Turnbull's Bend And that took you twenty miles out of your way and of course, we're humans, we don't stand for that So a canal was built to cut that bend out of the way Now that caused a problem hydraulagic-- hydra-- hydral-- hyda-- that's a difficult word to say Hydraulogic hydrologic hydra... Water modelling wasn't really a science back then It was more a case of just try it and see what works So that new canal combined with the removal of a log jam on the Atchafalaya River meant that the Mississippi wanted to move. It had found a much faster, steeper, and quicker route to the sea So gravity took it that way Suddenly, the Mississippi didn't want to go this way It wanted to go down the course of the Atchafalaya River a completely different route to the ocean and that is a big problem because here we have all these factories all these container docks built, and relying on this river The Mississippi moving would be a multi billion dollar, possibly even a trillion dollar disaster for America And so, 80 miles upstream from here where once there was Turnbulls Bend is now the Old River Control Structure Built by the US Army Corps of Engineers, who are the frankly amazing group who handle enormous public works and dams in America The Old River Control Structure means that the Atchafalaya River is dammed is stopped and 70% of the flow coming into it still moves down the Mississippi It is, a battleground, if you like, between humans trying to keep our world working and nature, which very much wants to go its own way so there you go something you might not know the Mississippi River really doesn't want to be here anymore
