Ethanol the cause of the severity of Iowa flooding??

[4429 mcc]

Yeah but wouldnt the flooding be much worse if it wasnt for man building reseviors??? Arent people talking now about building one north of Cedar Rapids so this doesnt happen again... 500 years from now (15)???

[jdoggivjc]

My wife said something about a conversation she had yesterday about how a number of levees, at least along the Mississippi, but possibly across the Midwest, were supposed to be inspected after the flood of 1993 to make sure they were capable of standing up to another flood of that kind of magnitude. Apparently 15 years later and most of them never were. I don't know how accurate this statement is or whether it would have made a difference anyway considering just how bad the flooding was in certain areas this year, but considering the number of levees that have just given away during this flood that's the rumor that's going around now anyway.

[Cy Heavy]

There are a lot of reason's why we're flooding now - farming every square inch possible is one though I'd say urban sprawl is just as guilty as farm production. The ton of rain in a short time on top of a pretty snowy winter is the main reason, IMHO.

[jdoggivjc]

Originally Posted by 4429 mcc

Yeah but wouldnt the flooding be much worse if it wasnt for man building reseviors??? Arent people talking now about building one north of Cedar Rapids so this doesnt happen again... 500 years from now (15)???

They actually explained this one on the Weather Channel a couple of nights ago. It's not that that kind of flood only happens once every 500 years. Since I live in the Quad Cities I'll use the Mississippi at Rock Island, IL as an example. I'm not quite sure what the numbers are exactly, but the normal Mississippi River height at Rock Island is 15', flood stage is 17', 100-year flood stage is 19', and 500-year flood stage is 21'. How they figure this is that in any given year there is a 1% chance that the Mississippi River will reach 19' - 1%= 1 year/100 years - 100 year flood. In any given year there's a 0.2% chance that the river will reach 21' - 0.2%=1 year/500 years, or 500 year flood.

It's a lot like rolling a die - it's not that you will roll a 4 once every 6 times you roll it, but you have a 1 in 6 chance of rolling a 4 every time you roll it. Same thing with the river - it's not that the Mississippi River is going to rise to 19' once every 100 years, but there's a 1% chance that it will rise to that level in ANY given year.

[TxCycloneFan]

Originally Posted by Bobber

My goodness..

I think a lot of urban folks think the following three things are the causes of all the problems in our world.

George Busch

Ethanol

Global Warming

You can mix and match any order you want...

the problem is people. we would be so much better off if there were no people.

[ArathornClone]

Originally Posted by Cy Heavy

There are a lot of reason's why we're flooding now - farming every square inch possible is one though I'd say urban sprawl is just as guilty as farm production. The ton of rain in a short time on top of a pretty snowy winter is the main reason, IMHO.

Interesting perspective about the land. I will admit one thing, in my personal opinion it rained ALOT more and more days in 1993 than this year yet the flood waters were higher this year. I don't remember the storms being as intense in '93 - more like a consistent light to medium rain about every darn day. It just seemed like it rained many more days in '93 than this year.

good point about the snow also. I don't remember what the winter in '92 was like but that could explain some of it since the ground was likely saturated this year.

I think this article is likely a mountain out of a mole hill. The farming (while surely a contributing factor) is probably a very minute contributor in the grand scheme of things and in something like statistics would be disregarded as insignificant, i.e. noise. But, the national media has political reasons for publishing this stuff.

[JonDMiller]

Originally Posted by Cy Heavy

The ton of rain in a short time on top of a pretty snowy winter is the main reason, IMHO.

I think its as simple as that. Record snowfall in east and northeast Iowa, on top of record rainfall totals in a 10 day span, and a wet and cold spring on top of that...water tables are full...no where for it to go.

End of story.

[clonefarmer]

Look at the precipitation maps for the week preceding the floods. There was a large area north of Cedar Rapids that had 8-10 inches of rain during that time. That on top of plenty of rain the prior 10 days and soils with a full moisture profile even before that. Soil erosion would have been lessened if more ground was in permanent grass seeding but the same amount of water would have run off. When the ground is saturated all of the rain is going to run off.

[Wx4Cy]

I'll say it had something to do with the 48,000 inches of rain that every river basin in the state took over about a 3 week period.

just me...

[balken]

A common tactic of "journalists" is to throw around statistics that seem big and seemingly make their point but are in reality almost insignificant. For example, the article mentions that 106,000 acres have been pulled out of CRP and implies that this was part of the man-made flood. It sounds like a big number, but there are over 35 million acres of land in Iowa. 106,000 is less than .003% of the total acres in Iowa. There are many more factless implications in the article, some with even less validity than this one.

[AirWalke]

I think the reservoirs played a big part. I heard from a few engineers that the Saylorville Dam really is only supposed to be a flood regulator, but the land and boat owners around the area wanted it to be a recreational lake... so they keep the waters much higher than it's normally supposed to be.

But I agree mostly with the prior posts. The weeks of constant rain played a major, major role.

Oh yeah, and global warming.

[CTAClone]

Originally Posted by raftercy

Maybe it's the cities faults. If they wouldn't build all of their levees, then the water would have some place to go, and wouldn't go downstream so fast.

I find it ironic that it's OK to build levees by cities to contain the river in the name of progress, but it's not OK for farmers to do similar things to make a buck.

This is what I was thinking to. All the concrete cities have, are terrible for run off. You should see what it looks like when it rains in LA. It's like a flash flood. Was in Arizona once when it rained and the streets were flooded.

Who ever has that post from Rising Sun, is spot on. We always look to blame someone for the problem when sometimes, just the simplest answer is the right one.

[Cyclone62]

Originally Posted by CTAClone

Who ever has that post from Rising Sun, is spot on. We always look to blame someone for the problem when sometimes, just the simplest answer is the right one.

Occam's Razor. The cure of all conspiracies.

[pulse]

Originally Posted by jdoggivjc

They actually explained this one on the Weather Channel a couple of nights ago. It's not that that kind of flood only happens once every 500 years. Since I live in the Quad Cities I'll use the Mississippi at Rock Island, IL as an example. I'm not quite sure what the numbers are exactly, but the normal Mississippi River height at Rock Island is 15', flood stage is 17', 100-year flood stage is 19', and 500-year flood stage is 21'. How they figure this is that in any given year there is a 1% chance that the Mississippi River will reach 19' - 1%= 1 year/100 years - 100 year flood. In any given year there's a 0.2% chance that the river will reach 21' - 0.2%=1 year/500 years, or 500 year flood.

It's a lot like rolling a die - it's not that you will roll a 4 once every 6 times you roll it, but you have a 1 in 6 chance of rolling a 4 every time you roll it. Same thing with the river - it's not that the Mississippi River is going to rise to 19' once every 100 years, but there's a 1% chance that it will rise to that level in ANY given year.

Ahhh, thanks! I always wondered why it didn't make any sense.

[cyclonewino]

During the boom times of the late 70's farmers farmed fence row to fence row with no CRP, the early 80's when prices collapsed farmers pushed harder to make ends meet. Therefore all flood records should have been in that time frame.