I am in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
How do I know that? Because it is written in enormous letters on this levee just here.
And this levee is on the Mississippi River, the most important river in America.
Not just because of the amount of water that it moves, but because of the amount of cargo.
Look at all these barges just here
that are waiting to have whatever they are carrying moved to the container ports
and to the factories that line this river for miles and miles and miles and miles.
But here is a problem, and something you might not know.
The Mississippi river doesn't want to be here anymore.
You see about a century ago, in the age of steamboats
there was a bend in the river about 80 miles away from here called Turnbull's Bend
And that took you twenty miles out of your way
and of course, we're humans, we don't stand for that
So a canal was built to cut that bend out of the way
Now that caused a problem
hydraulagic-- hydra-- hydral-- hyda-- that's a difficult word to say
Hydraulogic hydrologic hydra...
Water modelling wasn't really a science back then
It was more a case of just try it and see what works
So that new canal
combined with the removal of a log jam on the Atchafalaya River
meant that the Mississippi wanted to move.
It had found a much faster, steeper, and quicker route to the sea
So gravity took it that way
Suddenly, the Mississippi didn't want to go this way
It wanted to go down the course of the Atchafalaya River
a completely different route to the ocean
and that is a big problem because here
we have all these factories
all these container docks
built, and relying on this river
The Mississippi moving would be a multi billion dollar, possibly even a trillion dollar disaster for America
And so, 80 miles upstream from here
where once there was Turnbulls Bend
is now the Old River Control Structure
Built by the US Army Corps of Engineers,
who are the frankly amazing group who handle
enormous public works and dams in America
The Old River Control Structure means that the Atchafalaya River is dammed
is stopped
and 70% of the flow coming into it
still moves down the Mississippi
It is, a battleground, if you like, between humans
trying to keep our world working
and nature, which very much wants to go its own way
so there you go
something you might not know
the Mississippi River really doesn't want to be here anymore