The Impact of Man on the Ecology of the Mississippi River

Essay written by Calvin R. Fremling in a pamphlet of unrelated work including drawings and an essay about poetry. Summary: ...the meandering Mississippi of yesteryear has been transformed by man into a narrow, channelized, polluted, sinuous ditch from St. Louis to the Gulf of Mexico. Early channelization projects on the Upper Mississippi have been overshadowed by the impoundment projects of the 1930\u27s. The navigation dams, from Minneapolis to St. Louis, have made the old free-flowing Mississippi into a series of large, well-fertilized, silted lakes, through which an appreciable current still flows. The main stream is punctuated by navigation structures which provide large surface areas for habitation by certain invertebrates. In areas where pollution is not severe, man has temporarily increased the carrying capacity of the Upper Mississippi River for burrowing mayflies, hydropsychid caddisflies and most species of river fish. He has lowered the carrying capacity of the river for clams. Extreme pollution in the Twin Cities area has transformed the river into an open sewer as far south as Hastings. Man\u27s continued abuse of the watershed, the attendant elevation of the flood plain, and constriction of the flood plain will increase the severity of future floods. Reprinted from Mississippi River - Illinois Waterway 12 Foot Channel Study Phase 1 Report, U. S. Army Engineer Division. September 1972, Revised May 1973. 20 pages. Part of the Cal R. Fremling Collection.https://openriver.winona.edu/calfremlingpapers/1026/thumbnail.jp