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Rivers by Design - State Power and the Origins of U.S. Flood Control (Paperback, Annotated Ed)
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Rivers by Design - State Power and the Origins of U.S. Flood Control (Paperback, Annotated Ed)
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The United States has one of the largest and costliest flood
control systems in the world, even though only a small proportion
of its land lies in floodplains. Rivers by Design traces the
emergence of the mammoth U.S. flood management system, which is
overseen by the federal government but implemented in conjunction
with state governments and local contractors and levee districts.
Karen M. O'Neill analyzes the social origins of the flood control
program, showing how the system initially developed as a response
to the demands of farmers and the business elite in outlying
territories. The configuration of the current system continues to
reflect decisions made in the nineteenth century and early
twentieth. It favors economic development at the expense of
environmental concerns.O'Neill focuses on the creation of flood
control programs along the lower Mississippi River and the
Sacramento River, the first two rivers to receive federal flood
control aid. She describes how, in the early to mid-nineteenth
century, planters, shippers, and merchants from both regions
campaigned for federal assistance with flood control efforts. She
explains how the federal government was slowly and reluctantly
drawn into water management to the extent that, over time, nearly
every river in the United States was reengineered. Her narrative
culminates in the passage of the national Flood Control Act of
1936, which empowered the Army Corps of Engineers to build projects
for all navigable rivers in conjunction with local authorities,
effectively ending nationwide, comprehensive planning for the
protection of water resources.
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