WEBVTT

00:03.680 --> 00:05.902
I'm Dan Washing and I work in the water

00:05.902 --> 00:07.791
management section of the ST Paul

00:07.791 --> 00:09.847
District , Army Corps of Engineers .

00:09.847 --> 00:11.902
It's my job every day to monitor the

00:11.902 --> 00:13.847
water levels on the Mississippi to

00:13.847 --> 00:16.069
ensure a navigable depth . So my day to

00:16.069 --> 00:18.690
day job is providing safe and reliable

00:18.690 --> 00:20.912
navigation and that means maintaining a

00:20.912 --> 00:23.490
minimum navigation depth . The locks

00:23.490 --> 00:26.450
and dams on the main stem , Mississippi

00:26.460 --> 00:29.810
don't have enough storage or ability to

00:30.100 --> 00:32.280
reduce flooding impacts . And instead

00:32.280 --> 00:34.447
they pull their gates out of the water

00:34.447 --> 00:36.447
and they let the river restore to a

00:36.447 --> 00:38.447
natural state and let all the flood

00:38.447 --> 00:40.558
close , pass as quickly as possible .

00:40.558 --> 00:42.669
What you're gonna experience during a

00:42.669 --> 00:46.030
flood situation um is that the , if you

00:46.030 --> 00:48.252
were to go and see the locks and dams ,

00:48.252 --> 00:50.308
you would see all their gates pulled

00:50.308 --> 00:52.419
out of the water at a certain point .

00:52.419 --> 00:54.530
Um And what you'll notice is that the

00:54.530 --> 00:56.697
tail water I e the water below the dam

00:56.697 --> 00:58.808
is going to come up and meet the pool

00:58.808 --> 01:01.030
level or the headwater of the dam . And

01:01.030 --> 01:03.490
so literally , there's no room to

01:03.500 --> 01:05.611
evacuate any more water and equip any

01:05.611 --> 01:07.990
quicker than the dams already do . Um

01:08.000 --> 01:10.530
each dam is a little different . Um As

01:10.530 --> 01:12.586
you go up and down the Mississippi ,

01:12.586 --> 01:14.530
each one has a different amount of

01:14.530 --> 01:16.752
threshold that they , when they reach a

01:16.752 --> 01:18.808
threshold that they have to pull the

01:18.808 --> 01:20.752
gates . But all of them , you will

01:20.752 --> 01:22.974
notice that the tail water will come up

01:22.974 --> 01:24.919
to meet the head water . So from a

01:24.919 --> 01:27.086
water level management , as far as the

01:27.086 --> 01:29.030
navigation locks go , um they just

01:29.030 --> 01:30.974
don't have the storage capacity to

01:30.974 --> 01:32.863
really reduce flood risk . And so

01:32.863 --> 01:34.974
that's why I like to think of them as

01:34.974 --> 01:35.870
drought control , not flood control .