Download or read book River of Promise River of Peril written by John E. Thorson and published by Development of Western Resources. This book was released on 1994 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Snaking 2,540 miles from Montana to the Mississippi River, the Missouri is the longest waterway in the nation. Its basin—stretching 530,000 square miles—extends broadly into ten states and twenty-five Indian reservations. For millions of years the river and its tributaries meandered untamed. But that irrevocably changed with the passage of the Pick-Sloan Plan, part of the Flood Control Act of 1944. In River of Promise, River of Peril, John Thorson takes the first comprehensive look at how and why the Missouri River basin-now with six major dams and hundreds of miles of navigation canals-has become one of the most significantly altered drainage systems in the country. He also looks at the consequences. The Pick-Sloan Plan, he argues, has not fared well over time, particularly in its failure to provide an effective blueprint for regional river management. Persistent conflicts over the river, he contends, illuminate important weaknesses of federalism in dealing with regional resources, the most glaring being the exclusion of any proactive role for Indian tribal governments. To support his argument, Thorson examines the physical, demographic, and political features of the river basin; analyzes the comprehensive river development that gave birth to the Pick-Sloan Plan; reveals why the original goals of the legislature were never achieved; explores the deep-seated and continuing tensions between basin governments; and investigates how Indian tribes, the river's ecology, and federalism have been damaged as the river has been developed. He also describes the various associations created and later abandoned from the sixties to the eighties and assesses their virtues and limitations. Thorson sees in the story of the Missouri River Basin the vertical and horizontal strains of federalism-the states chafing against federally mandated and controlled projects exacerbated by the lack of constitutional guidance for handling conflicts among neighboring states and with Indian nations. Not just bent on spotlighting problems, Thorson also evaluates different approaches for improved river system management and recommends a Missouri River management institution based on environmentally sensitive policies, a strong state role, and full participation by the basin's tribal governments.
Download or read book River of Promise river of Peril written by John E. Thorson and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 792 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Unruly River written by Robert Kelley Schneiders and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text takes a long historical view to reconstruct the Missouri Valley environment before Euro-American settlement and then trace the environmental transformations resulting from the development projects of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Download or read book Rivers of North America written by Arthur C. Benke and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2011-09-06 with total page 1168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: AWARDS:2006 Outstanding Academic Title, by CHOICEThe 2005 Award for Excellence in Professional and Scholarly Publishing by the Association of American Publishers (AAP) Best Reference 2005, by the Library JournalRivers of North America is an important reference for scientists, ecologists, and students studying rivers and their ecosystems. It brings together information from several regional specialists on the major river basins of North America, presented in a large-format, full-color book. The introduction covers general aspects of geology, hydrology, ecology and human impacts on rivers. This is followed by 22 chapters on the major river basins. Each chapter begins with a full-page color photograph and includes several additional photographs within the text. These chapters feature three to five rivers of the basin/region, and cover several other rivers with one-page summaries. Rivers selected for coverage include the largest, the most natural, and the most affected by human impact. This one-of-a-kind resource is professionally illustrated with maps and color photographs of the key river basins. Readers can compare one river system to another in terms of its physiography, hydrology, ecology, biodiversity, and human impacts. * Extensive treatment provides a single source of information for North America's major rivers* Regional specialists provide authoritative information on more than 200 rivers* Full-color photographs and topographical maps demonstrate the beauty, major features, and uniqueness of each river system* One-page summaries help readers quickly find key statistics and make comparisons among rivers
Download or read book A River in the City of Fountains written by Amahia K. Mallea and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2018-10-15 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Founded as a port at the confluence of two great rivers, Kansas City has the waters of the Missouri running through its bloodstream—threading expressways, delivering drinking water, carrying traffic and sewage, and emerging most visibly in the city’s celebrated fountains. Despite, or perhaps because of, the river’s ubiquity, the complex and critical nature of its presence can be hard to understand, which is precisely why Amahia Mallea’s enlightening book is so essential. Moving from the city’s center to the outer limits of the metropolitan area, A River in the City of Fountains offers a clear view of the reach and intricacies of the Missouri River’s connection to life in Kansas City. The history of this connection is one of science and industry working, sometimes at cross-purposes, to bend the river to the needs of commerce and public health. It is a story populated with heroes and villains, visionaries and robber barons, scientists and civil engineers, politicians and activists—all with schemes and plans and far-reaching ideas about what, and whose, demands the power of the Missouri should serve. And so, inevitably, it is a story of disparities: a story of, from one flood to the next, the haves staking out higher ground, leaving the have-nots to the perils of low-lying land. But what the book also shows us is a slow awakening to the ways in which all those vying for the river’s favor are inextricably connected by its course; here we see, finally, a growing awareness of the river’s essential role in the health and welfare of the whole urban environment. In the end, all citizens of Kansas City are both upstream and downstream; all are equally dependent on the health of the river. What this book helps us see is, at last, as much the city in the river as the river in the city.
Download or read book In the Footsteps of Lewis and Clark written by Wallace G. Lewis and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2011-05-18 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although it was 1806 when Lewis and Clark returned to St. Louis after their journey across the country, it was not until 1905 that they were celebrated as national heroes. In the Footsteps of Lewis and Clark examines how public attitudes toward their explorations and the means of commemorating them have changed, from the production of the Lewis and Clark Exposition in 1905 to the establishment of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail in 1978 and the celebrations of the expedition's bicentennial from 2003 through 2007. The first significant stirrings of national public interest in Lewis and Clark coincided with the beginning of a nationwide fascination with transcontinental automobile touring. Americans began to reconnect with the past and interact with the history of Western expansion by becoming a new breed of "frontier explorer" via their cars. As a result, early emphasis on local plaques and monuments yielded to pageants, reenactments, and, ultimately, attempts to retrace the route, promoting conservation and recreation along its length. Wallace G. Lewis details the ingenuity that inspired the establishment of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, opening a window to how America reimagines, recreates, and remembers its own past. In the Footsteps of Lewis and Clark will appeal to both scholarly and armchair historians interested in the Western frontier as experienced by both Lewis and Clark and those retracing their steps today.
Download or read book The Only True America written by David R. Hauser and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2000-08-14 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Probing the Journals of Lewis and Clark far more closely than other works, the book develops the understanding that these Enlightenment gentlemen from Virginia gradually entered the unfamiliar world of the West and Native American animism and magic, and they responded differently. Clark adapted and learned from the Indians, whereas Lewis resisted them as "savages." Clark returned after having envisioned a "landscape of hope" and lives a long life of service to native tribes. Lewis saw a "landscape of despair" and in the three remaining years of his life encountered conflict and disappointment. Both perspectives on the West are still alive. Some find in the virtual obliteration of Native American cultures and the despoiling of the land itself the loss of the West. But another impulse, toward energy, inventiveness, and community spirit, seems alive, especially evident in the smaller cities and larger towns along the route of the explorers. In such places the "landscape of hope" is very much alive. The experience of Lewis and Clark, then, parallels our experience today.
Download or read book Transient Landscapes written by Ellen Wohl and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2015-07-13 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Landscape—the unique combination of landforms, plants, animals, and weather that compose any natural place—is inherently transient. Each essay in Transient Landscapes introduces this idea of a constantly metamorphosing global landscape, revealing how to see the ubiquity of landscape transience, both that which results through Earth’s natural environmental and climatological processes and that which comes from human intervention. The essays are grouped by type of environmental change: long-term, large-scale transformation driven by geologic forces such as tectonic uplift and volcanism; natural variability at shorter time scales, such as seasonal flooding; and modifications resulting from human activities, such as timber harvest, land drainage, and pollution. Each essay is set in a unique geographic location—including such diverse places as New Zealand, Northern California, Costa Rica, and the Scottish Highlands—and is largely drawn from Wohl’s personal experience researching in the field. A combination of travel writing, nature writing, and science writing, Transient Landscapes is a beautiful and thoughtful journey through the natural world.
Download or read book Public Power Private Dams written by Karl Boyd Brooks and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2009-11-17 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the years following World War II, the world’s biggest dam was almost built in Hells Canyon on the Snake River in Idaho. Karl Boyd Brooks tells the story of the dam controversy, which became a referendum not only on public-power expansion but also on the environmental implications of the New Deal’s natural resources and economic policy. Private-power critics of the Hells Canyon High Dam posed difficult questions about the implications of damming rivers to create power and to grow crops. Activists, attorneys, and scientists pioneered legal tactics and political rhetoric that would help to define the environmental movement in the 1960s. The debate, however, was less about endangered salmon or threatened wild country and more about who would control land and water and whether state enterprise or private capital would oversee the supply of electricity. By thwarting the dam’s construction, Snake Basin irrigators retained control over water as well as economic and political power in Idaho, putting the state on a postwar path that diverged markedly from that of bordering states. In the end, the opponents of the dam were responsible for preserving high deserts and mountain rivers from radical change. With Public Power, Private Dams, Karl Brooks makes an important contribution not only to the history of the Pacific Northwest and the region’s anadromous fisheries but also to the environmental history of the United States in the period after World War II.
Download or read book History of Nebraska Fourth Edition written by James C. Olson and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2014-12-31 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History of Nebraska was originally created to mark the territorial centennial of Nebraska and then revised to coincide with the statehood centennial. This one-volume history quickly became the standard text for the college student and reference for the general reader, unmatched for generations as the only comprehensive history of the state. This fourth edition, revised and updated, preserves the spirit and intelligence of the original. Incorporating the results of years of scholarship and research, this edition gives fuller attention to such topics as the Native American experience in Nebraska and the accomplishments and circumstances of the state’s women and minorities. It also provides a historical analysis of the state’s dramatic changes in the past two decades.
Download or read book The History of Large Federal Dams written by David P. Billington and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 2005-10 with total page 630 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the story of Federal contributions to dam planning, design, and construction.
Download or read book Overview written by Toni Rae Linenberger and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Missouri River Natural Resources Bibliography written by Vincent J. Burke and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Our History Is the Future written by Nick Estes and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2024-07-16 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Awards: One Book South Dakota Common Read, South Dakota Humanities Council, 2022. PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award, PEN America, 2020. One Book One Tribe Book Award, First Nations Development Institute, 2020. Finalist, Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize, 2019. Shortlist, Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize, 2019. Our History Is the Future is at once a work of history, a personal story, and a manifesto. Now available in paperback on the fifth anniversary of its original publication, Our History Is the Future features a new afterword by Nick Estes about the rising indigenous campaigns to protect our environment from extractive industries and to shape new ways of relating to one another and the world. In this award-winning book, Estes traces traditions of Indigenous resistance leading to the present campaigns against fossil fuel pipelines, such as the Dakota Access Pipeline Protests, from the days of the Missouri River trading forts through the Indian Wars, the Pick-Sloan dams, the American Indian Movement, and the campaign for Indigenous rights at the United Nations. In 2016, a small protest encampment at the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota, initially established to block construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, grew to be the largest Indigenous protest movement in the twenty-first century, attracting tens of thousands of Indigenous and non-Native allies from around the world. Its slogan “Mni Wiconi”—Water Is Life—was about more than just a pipeline. Water Protectors knew this battle for Native sovereignty had already been fought many times before, and that, even with the encampment gone, their anti-colonial struggle would continue. While a historian by trade, Estes draws on observations from the encampments and from growing up as a citizen of the Oceti Sakowin (the Nation of the Seven Council Fires) and his own family’s rich history of struggle.
Download or read book The Missouri River Ecosystem written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2002-07-22 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Missouri River Ecosystem: Exploring the Prospects for Recovery resulted from a study conducted at the request of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The nation's longest river, the Missouri River and its floodplain ecosystem experienced substantial environmental and hydrologic changes during the twentieth century. The context of Missouri River dam and reservoir system management is marked by sharp differences between stakeholders regarding the river's proper management regime. The management agencies have been challenged to determine the appropriate balance between these competing interests. This Water Science and Technology Board report reviews the ecological state of the river and floodplain ecosystem, scientific research of the ecosystem, and the prospects for implementing an adaptive management approach, all with a view toward helping move beyond ongoing scientific and other differences. The report notes that continued ecological degradation of the ecosystem is certain unless some portion of pre-settlement river flows and processes were restored. The report also includes recommendations to enhance scientific knowledge through carefully planned and monitored river management actions and the enactment of a Missouri River Protection and Recovery Act.
Download or read book Precious Commodity written by Martin V. Melosi and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2011-04-30 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As an essential resource, water has been the object of warfare, political wrangling, and individual and corporate abuse. It has also become an object of commodification, with multinational corporations vying for water supply contracts in many countries. In Precious Commodity, Martin V. Melosi examines water resources in the United States and addresses whether access to water is an inalienable right of citizens, and if government is responsible for its distribution as a public good. Melosi provides historical background on the construction, administration, and adaptability of water supply and wastewater systems in urban America. He cites budgetary constraints and the deterioration of existing water infrastructures as factors leading many municipalities to seriously consider the privatization of their water supply. Melosi also views the role of government in the management of, development of, and legal jurisdiction over America's rivers and waterways for hydroelectric power, flood control, irrigation, and transportation access. Looking to the future, he compares the costs and benefits of public versus private water supply, examining the global movement toward privatization.
Download or read book Water in the West written by Western Water Policy Review Advisory Commission and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
