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Language: en

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I am in Baton Rouge, Louisiana

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How do I know that? Because it is written in enormous letters on this levee just here.

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And this levee is on the Mississippi River, the most important river in America.

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Not just because of the amount of water that it moves, but because of the amount of cargo.

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Look at all these barges just here

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that are waiting to have whatever they are carrying moved to the container ports

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and to the factories that line this river for miles and miles and miles and miles.

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But here is a problem, and something you might not know.

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The Mississippi river doesn't want to be here anymore.

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You see about a century ago, in the age of steamboats

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there was a bend in the river about 80 miles away from here called Turnbull's Bend

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And that took you twenty miles out of your way

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and of course, we're humans, we don't stand for that

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So a canal was built to cut that bend out of the way

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Now that caused a problem

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hydraulagic-- hydra-- hydral-- hyda-- that's a difficult word to say

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Hydraulogic hydrologic hydra...

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Water modelling wasn't really a science back then

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It was more a case of just try it and see what works

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So that new canal

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combined with the removal of a log jam on the Atchafalaya River

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meant that the Mississippi wanted to move.

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It had found a much faster, steeper, and quicker route to the sea

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So gravity took it that way

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Suddenly, the Mississippi didn't want to go this way

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It wanted to go down the course of the Atchafalaya River

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a completely different route to the ocean

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and that is a big problem because here

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we have all these factories

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all these container docks

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built, and relying on this river

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The Mississippi moving would be a multi billion dollar, possibly even a trillion dollar disaster for America

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And so, 80 miles upstream from here

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where once there was Turnbulls Bend

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is now the Old River Control Structure

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Built by the US Army Corps of Engineers,

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who are the frankly amazing group who handle

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enormous public works and dams in America

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The Old River Control Structure means that the Atchafalaya River is dammed

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is stopped

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and 70% of the flow coming into it

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still moves down the Mississippi

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It is, a battleground, if you like, between humans

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trying to keep our world working

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and nature, which very much wants to go its own way

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so there you go

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something you might not know

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the Mississippi River really doesn't want to be here anymore