Simple plan is model for preventing floods

Lester Goodin is a good citizen. Now the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has recognized that citizenship, as characterized by his good stewardship of our natural resources.

During the mid-1980s, Goodin saw severe erosion threatening his land at Thompson Bend next to the southernmost tip of Illinois along the banks of the Mississippi River.

The Corps of Engineers had faced similar problems before and had usually tried to stack boulders along the shoreline, with limited success.

Working with Corps of Engineers officials, Goodin looked to nature for an environmentally friendly solution. Why not plant certain types of trees along the river to slow down the current and decrease erosion?

In the late 1980s, Goodin, the Corps of Engineers and other landowners and federal agencies began planting 150 acres of pecan, cottonwood and hackberry trees perpendicular to flow lines across the area, to slow the erosive force of floodwaters and to encourage deposits of sediment carried by the river.

When the floods of 1993 hit, the plan worked. Following that flood, more trees were planted. Today, Lester Goodin's Thompson Bend Soil Management Conservation Project is considered a model for reducing erosion while improving wildlife habitat.

Congratulations to Lester Goodin, to the Corps of Engineers, to Westvaco Corp. and to all involved.

This is good stewardship at its best.