Snaking 2,540 miles from Montana to the Mississippi River, the
Missouri is the longest waterway in the nation. Its
basin--stretching 530,000 square miles--extends broadly into ten
states and twenty-five Indian reservations. For millions of years
the river and its tributaries meandered untamed. But that
irrevocably changed with the passage of the Pick-Sloan Plan, part
of the Flood Control Act of 1944.
In "River of Promise, River of Peril," John Thorson takes the
first comprehensive look at how and why the Missouri River
basin-now with six major dams and hundreds of miles of navigation
canals-has become one of the most significantly altered drainage
systems in the country. He also looks at the consequences.
The Pick-Sloan Plan, he argues, has not fared well over time,
particularly in its failure to provide an effective blueprint for
regional river management. Persistent conflicts over the river, he
contends, illuminate important weaknesses of federalism in dealing
with regional resources, the most glaring being the exclusion of
any proactive role for Indian tribal governments.
To support his argument, Thorson examines the physical,
demographic, and political features of the river basin; analyzes
the comprehensive river development that gave birth to the
Pick-Sloan Plan; reveals why the original goals of the legislature
were never achieved; explores the deep-seated and continuing
tensions between basin governments; and investigates how Indian
tribes, the river's ecology, and federalism have been damaged as
the river has been developed. He also describes the various
associations created and later abandoned from the sixties to the
eighties and assesses their virtues and limitations.
Thorson sees in the story of the Missouri River Basin the
vertical and horizontal strains of federalism-the states chafing
against federally mandated and controlled projects exacerbated by
the lack of constitutional guidance for handling conflicts among
neighboring states and with Indian nations. Not just bent on
spotlighting problems, Thorson also evaluates different approaches
for improved river system management and recommends a Missouri
River management institution based on environmentally sensitive
policies, a strong state role, and full participation by the
basin's tribal governments.
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