A revelatory work of reporting on the men and women wrestling to
harness and preserve America's most vital natural resource: our
rivers. The Mississippi. The Missouri. The Ohio. America's rivers
are the very lifeblood of our country. We need them for nourishing
crops, for cheap bulk transportation, for hydroelectric power, for
fresh drinking water. Rivers are also part of our mythology, our
collective soul; they are Mark Twain, Led Zeppelin, and the Delta
Blues. But as infrastructure across the nation fails and climate
change pushes rivers and seas to new heights, we've arrived at a
critical moment in our battle to tame these often-destructive
forces of nature. Tyler J. Kelley spent two years traveling the
heartland, getting to know the men and women whose lives and
livelihoods rely on these tenuously tamed streams. On the
Illinois-Kentucky border, we encounter Luther Helland, master of
the most important--and most decrepit--lock and dam in America.
This old dam at the end of the Ohio River was scheduled to be
replaced in 1998, but twenty years and $3 billion later, its
replacement still isn't finished. As the old dam crumbles and
commerce grinds to a halt, Helland and his team must risk their
lives, using steam-powered equipment and sheer brawn, to raise and
lower the dam as often as ten times a year. In Southeast Missouri,
we meet Twan Robinson, who lives in the historically Black village
of Pinhook. As a super-flood rises on the Mississippi, she learns
from her sister that the US Army Corps of Engineers is going to
blow up the levee that stands between her home and the river. With
barely enough notice to evacuate her elderly mother and pack up a
few of her own belongings, Robinson escapes to safety only to begin
a nightmarish years-long battle to rebuild her lost community. Atop
a floodgate in central Louisiana, we're beside Major General
Richard Kaiser, the man responsible for keeping North America's
greatest river under control. Kaiser stands above the spot where
the Mississippi River wants to change course, abandoning Baton
Rouge and New Orleans, and following the Atchafalaya River to the
sea. The daily flow of water from one river to the other is
carefully regulated, but something else is happening that may be
out of Kaiser and the Corps' control. America's infrastructure is
old and underfunded. While our economy, society, and climate have
changed, our levees, locks, and dams have not. Yet to fix what's
wrong will require more than money. It will require an act of
imagination. "With meticulous research and insightful analysis"
(Publishers Weekly), Holding Back the River brings us into the
lives of the Americans who grapple with our mighty rivers and,
through their stories, suggests solutions to some of the century's
greatest challenges.
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