“The Mississippi is well worth reading about. It is not a commonplace river, but on the contrary it is in all ways remarkable.”
Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi
Here’s a great article that details Louisiana and America’s coming reckoning with the Mississippi River’s tireless resolve carve a new course to the Gulf: “America’s Achilles’ Heel: The Old River Control Structure.”
For those of you who are both fascinated by the prospect of the river choosing a new course and who are into this kind of thing–like me, more or less professionally–there’s a work of environmental history you shouldn’t miss: Beyond Control: The Mississippi River’s New Channel to the Gulf of Mexico. The book is basically a detailed, scholarly statement of the article’s premise: Change is coming to the Mississippi basin.
C.B. Crenshaw 