Iowa Flooding Could Be An Act of Man, Experts Say

Kamyar Enshayan, director of an environmental center at the University of Northern Iowa, suspects that this natural disaster wasn’t really all that natural. He points out that the heavy rains fell on a landscape radically reengineered by humans. Plowed fields have replaced tallgrass prairies. Fields have been meticulously drained with underground pipes. Streams and creeks have been straightened. Most of the wetlands are gone. Flood plains have been filled and developed.

“We’ve done numerous things to the landscape that took away these water-absorbing functions,” he said. “Agriculture must respect the limits of nature.”

[S]ome Iowans who study the environment suspect that changes in the land, both recently and over the past century or so, have made Iowa’s terrain not only highly profitable but also highly vulnerable to flooding.

via the Washington Post

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I noticed this photograph on the Flickr set of the Red Cross’s Midwestern flood relief efforts. The photo provides an idea of how much water was flowing around Cedar Falls, Iowa on June 10, 2008.

Sandbagging efforts in Cedar Falls kept the raging waters of the Cedar River from flooding the downtown area. The sign is located in an area that is usually above water. My guess is that the water level in the photo is somewhere between 2 to 3 ft. high.

I was curious as to what the text on the sign said. Fortunately, a hi-resolution version of the original photograph had been uploaded and it was easy to discern the text on the marker.

By the way, I think it’s important to note that critical thinking can still exist within a discourse of support…just wanted to give everyone a heads up as I am going to delve into some thinking that is critical of a historical marker that needs some serious editing.

(continue reading…)