The water was so low in the Mississippi River this time last year that you could walk to Tower Rock. People called it a “once in a lifetime†experience. And it was.
Tower Rock, which explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark called the “Grand Tower,†rises high from the river, adjacent to Perry County in southeast Missouri. It is normally surrounded by water. But last year, and before that in 1988, the water was so receded because of drought that you could walk on the natural limestone bridge to the tower without getting your feet wet.
Thousands of people from around the country flocked to the tower.
The once-in-a-lifetime event has happened again — less than a year later. But don’t rush to Tower Rock this time. The road to get to the state conservation area is closed because of construction. The reality of climate change, however, is that a generation of river lovers likely won’t have to wait decades to have their Tower Rock experience.
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And that has mayors up and down the Mississippi River worried. Last week, those mayors gathered for the annual meeting of the nonprofit and did something important. They passed a resolution to push lawmakers in the 10 states that border the Mississippi, from Minnesota to Louisiana, to protect one of the nation’s most valuable natural resources.
Mayors from big cities like ºüÀêÊÓƵ, and from smaller ones like Kimmswick in Jefferson County, support the concept of a river compact because their economic livelihoods depend on it.
“A Mississippi River compact would protect our corridor’s resources, create better state cooperation, federal project effectiveness, and would ecologically restore and sustain our region,†said Nick Desideri, spokesperson for ºüÀêÊÓƵ Mayor Tishaura O. Jones.
The drought keeping the river levels low is not isolated to the Midwest. Folks in California, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico have struggled with a historic drought as they limit the amount of water cities, states and Native American tribes can take from the Colorado River. Some leaders in those states have turned their wandering eyes to the east, to the Missouri River and the Mississippi River. They’ve wondered aloud about the possibility of tapping water from the rivers to help quench the thirst of the growing and arid Southwest.
That has caught the attention of mayors whose cities draw their livelihood — and in some cases, like ºüÀêÊÓƵ, their water supply — from the Mississippi.
“There are people that are very serious about water conveyance from the Mississippi River corridor to drier parts of the country,†says Colin Wellenkamp, executive director of the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative. “We’re deploying all these projects and the mayors are wondering what we can do to protect them?â€
Indeed, cities have received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal money to protect the river’s environmental health, while also improving the infrastructure that allows grain and other commodities to move along in barges.
The Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative started talking about some kind of a compact shortly after the group was formed in 2013. That was just a couple of years after I advocated for something similar in Missouri River states. In a series of editorials titled “One River, One Problem,†I pushed for the same solution to river problems that the Post-Dispatch editorial page first proposed in 1944 after devastating flooding: a compact between states to manage the river together.
It didn’t happen then for the Missouri River. The result has been a constant push and pull between upper basin states that want water for recreation and lower basin states that need flood protection. Environmental and agricultural interests also often find themselves at odds. In recent years, those warring interests have realized that they can accomplish more when working together. In northwest Missouri, they took the unprecedented step of moving an agricultural levy to give the river more room to roam when it rises outside its banks.
That’s one reason why Wellenkamp thinks the Mississippi River interests might come together this time. Fear — of drought and floods, and of Western states taking the precious water — is a powerful political motivator. For such a compact to come to fruition, every state would need to get identical legislation through their state legislatures. Congress would have to pass the compact as well.
It’s a heavy lift, one that could take a decade or more. But the future health of the river, and the cities that it brings life to, are worth the investment.
It could be, like walking to Tower Rock used to be, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Tony Messenger's columns on levees and flood control along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers
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