SPEAKER: CONCERN ABOUT RIVER ISN'T NEW

Environmental concern for the Mississippi River is not a recent phenomenon, according to a government scientist who studies the waterway.

Claude Strauser of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gave the first in a year-long series of Cape Girardeau bicentennial lectures Friday night at Southeast Missouri State University.

Strauser focused his talk on the 195-mile portion of the Mississippi between St. Louis and Cairo, and the concern the federal government has had in maintaining a navigational channel.

Strauser, chief of the potamology section at the Corps' St. Louis office, explained to the 85 people attending the lecture that potamology is the study or science of rivers.

Using the 75-year-cycle of Halley's Comet appearance and the birth of Mark Twain, both in April 1835, Strauser illustrated the drastic changes that have occurred to the Middle Mississippi River from that time period to the present.

During the period, Strauser said the Middle Mississippi River went from a swift, narrow, wilderness river to an abused, slow-moving, wide and shallow river, and finally, back to near the same kind of river as the early settlers found in the early 1800s.

When Mark Twain was born, and before the full effects of man on the river were felt, Strauser said the surface area of the Middle Mississippi's riverbed area between St. Louis and Cairo was about 95 square miles, with 14 square miles of island surface.

By the late 1800s, the Middle Mississippi's riverbed had expanded to 128 square miles with 35 square miles of islands. To put it another way, Strauser explained that in 1821, the average width of the river between St. Louis and Cairo was 3,600 feet. By 1888, the river had widened itself through bank erosion to become, on the average, over a mile wide in many locations.

"The rapid development of the Mississippi Valley by man and the arrival of the steamboat at St. Louis had a tremendous impact on the deterioration of river," Strauser said. "As more and more trees were cut away from the edge of the river for steamboat fuel, new house and other construction needs, the riverbanks caved from erosion caused by the current and increased flooding. As a result the river became wider and more and more shallow.

"It was no accident that by the mid- to late 1800s, the number of steamboat accidents due to shallow water rose dramatically."

Strauser said concerns about the deteriorating condition of the river were voiced by boat owners, merchants, and the people who lived along the river.

All depended on the steamboat and the Mississippi River as their lifeline to commerce and civilization, Stauser said.

Congress authorized the Corps of Engineers to see what could be done about reversing the deterioration of the Middle Mississippi. In 1880, after considerable study and debate, Congress directed the Corps to "obtain and maintain a safe and dependable navigation channel, and restore the river to its once majestic condition."

To achieve what Strauser said was considered by many, including Mark Twain, an almost impossible task, the Corps had to develop a philosophy and plan.

He said military engineers studying the magnitude of the problem quickly realized man could never fully control the forces that characterize the Middle Mississippi River. Instead, they suggested the Corps use the assistance of nature and the river rather than oppose them.

"As one engineer noted, `A mighty river is impatient under restraint. It can be led, but not driven,'" Strauser said. "This is basically the policy the Corps still follows today."

Did the policy work?

"We've pretty much put the river back like people saw it in the early 1800s, while maintaining the navigation channel for continued commerce," said Strauser.

Strauser says the Middle Mississippi River continues to be a lifeline ... not just of the towns along the river, but of the entire nation. He noted most of the grain produced in the United States passes by Cape Girardeau in river barges bound for New Orleans for world export markets. In return, other barges bring upstream other vital bulk commodities, such as oil and petrochemicals, coal, and raw materials for industry.

Strauser said in 1990, an all-time record tonnage moved up and down the Mississippi River. That year, a record 120 million tons of commerce passed by Cape Girardeau.

The next lecture in the bicentennial series, "The Indians of the Cape Girardeau Area," will be presented Dec. 11 by Carol Morrow of Southeast Missouri State University. The lectures are sponsored by the Cape Girardeau Bicentennial Commission and Southeast Missouri State University.