Managing the Upper Missouri River for Agriculture, Irrigation, Flood Control, and Energy Kenneth R
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doi:10.2489/jswc.72.5.105A FEATURE Managing the upper Missouri River for agriculture, irrigation, flood control, and energy Kenneth R. Olson and Lois Wright Morton he Missouri River, the longest river Figure 1 in North America, has shaped the The upper Missouri River basin has six main stem dams, which manage down- Tancient and modern landscapes, cul- stream flooding, provide hydroelectricity, and allow irrigation for agriculture. tures, and economies of Montana, North Map by Mic Greenberg. and South Dakota, Nebraska, western Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri. The agrarian Canada heritage of the region is deeply rooted in Missouri Fort Peck the seeds planted in the Dakota soils and Great River Garrison cultivated by the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Falls Arikara Indians (Lewis and Clark Visitor Three Missouri Bismarck Forks Billings River Center 2016). The river flows 3,767 km Yellowstone River Minneapolis (2,341 mi) east and south from the Rocky Oahe Mississippi Mountains of western Montana through River Rapid Copyright © 2017 Soil and Water Conservation Society. All rights reserved. Big Bend Journal of Soil and Water Conservation the shortgrass and tallgrass prairies of the City Casper Great Plains of the United States to its Sioux N North Fort Randall City Platte River Gavins Des confluence with the Mississippi River at Point Moines St. Louis, Missouri (figure 1). Platte River Omaha Migrant and native peoples have Lincoln Legend Mississippi depended on the Missouri River and Columbia River 193 km Denver Kansas its tributaries for transportation, food, City St. Dams Louis South Platte and trade throughout North America Rivers River for over 12,000 years or since the end Missouri Missouri River basin River of the Pleistocene period. The conflu- ence with the Mississippi River links the entire Missouri River basin to the Gulf 72(5):105A-110A of Mexico and forms the third longest river system (5,936 km [3,710 mi]) in the pipelines carrying oil and natural gas east Cretaceous rocks in this orogeny formed world. The lands adjacent to the broad, and south to ports on the Gulf of Mexico. a mountain range west of the Interior wide Missouri River are historically sub- The soil, water, and other natural Seaway, a shallow sea that extended from ject to flooding when the ice melts in resources of the upper Missouri River the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. www.swcs.org the Rockies and heavy spring rains rush basin have never been more valued and The Laramide uplift forced the sea to downstream making cities, agricultural critical to national security, and more vul- retreat and created the drainage systems of lands, and their levees also vulnerable to nerable to degradation. Home to many the modern day Missouri and Mississippi flood pressures (Olson and Morton 2017). different cultures and worldviews, the rivers. The sediments from this pro- In late nineteenth and early twentieth basin has regional, national, and global cess are the parent materials and soils of centuries, a number of dams were built impacts, including boom-bust-boom the Missouri and Mississippi river basins along the course of Missouri River, trans- industries and in- and out-migration of (Olson and Morton 2017). The Laramide forming 35% of the river into a chain of jobs; contested uses of the water, miner- orogeny is the key to the Missouri River lakes designed to manage downstream als, soils and other natural resources; and hydrology, with Rocky Mountain snow flood risks and provide hydroelectricity concerns about protection of the fragile and ice melt the primary source of the and agricultural irrigation. More recently, soils, landforms, and views that draw visi- Missouri River and tributary flows. North Dakota has experienced an oil tors from around the world. The Missouri River lies atop the Great boom, and the region is crisscrossed with Falls Tectonic Zone, an intracontinen- ANCIENT MISSOURI RIVER tal shear zone between the Hearne and Kenneth R. Olson is professor emeritus of soil VALLEY GEOLOGY Wyoming provinces. The river forms near science in the College of Agricultural, Con- At the end of Mesozoic and through Three Forks, Montana, at the confluence of sumer, and Environmental Sciences, University early Cenozoic periods (70 to 45 mil- the Madison, Jefferson, and Gallatin rivers of Illinois, Urbana. Lois Wright Morton is pro- 2 2 fessor emeritus of sociology in the College of lion years ago), the Rocky Mountains and drains 1,300,000 km (529,350 mi ) as Agriculture and Life Sciences, Iowa State Uni- of southwestern Montana rose dur- it flows east and south. This semiarid water- versity, Ames, Iowa. ing a mountain-building episode called shed includes parts of 11 US states (figure the Laramide orogeny (Jones 2012). The 1) and two Canadian provinces, with the JOURNAL OF SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION SEPT/OCT 2017—VOL. 72, NO. 5 105A Missouri River valley ranging from 9.7 km Figure 2 (6 mi) to 16 km (10 mi) wide. Meriwether Lewis on the trip up the Missouri River described in his notes a wide variety of animals including the majestic elk like this one in Yellowstone Park. LEWIS AND CLARK’S CORPS OF DISCOVERY TRIP The French and Spanish were the first Europeans in late seventeenth century to discover the unique Missouri River and its varied and rich resources. The land in the Missouri River basin was originally con- trolled by American Indians and then the Spanish and the French until it became part of the United States when President Thomas Jefferson agreed to the Louisiana Purchase. President Jefferson commis- sioned Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in 1803 to explore the Missouri Copyright © 2017 Soil and Water Conservation Society. All rights reserved. River and find a water route to the Pacific Journal of Soil and Water Conservation Ocean (Ambrose 2005). It was known that the Columbia River system drained west out of the Rockies into the Pacific Ocean. The headwaters of the Missouri River had a similar latitude and, although maps of the region were scarce or nonex- istent, it was widely thought that a short tors and were invaluable in guiding the ing upriver travel. A 16 km (10 mi) section portage or connection between the two Corps to the Missouri River headwaters. of the river had five separate cascades with rivers existed. In spring and summer of 1805, the Corps a combined height of 57 m (187 ft) with In late 1803, Lewis and Clark received continued their trip up the Missouri the river in-between the falls descending an word that the United States had officially River with Lewis recording in his notes a additional 130 m (425 ft) for a total of a 187 72(5):105A-110A acquired New Orleans, Louisiana, and the diversity of plants and animals, such as elk m (612 ft) elevation drop. It took Lewis and Missouri River watershed or 2,144,510 (figure 2), pronghorn, and buffalo. Clark one month to portage 40 km (25 mi) km2 (828,000 mi2) (Olson and Morton The Corps of Discovery expedition around the Great Falls of Missouri. 2017) mostly located in the Mississippi reached Three Forks of the Missouri on Much like the falls in Minneapolis, and Missouri river valleys from the French July 25, 1805—4,000 km (2,500 mi) from Minnesota, on the upper Mississippi River www.swcs.org (figure 1). The Corps of Discovery led by their Woods River campsite near St. Louis. (Olson and Morton 2016), the Great Falls Lewis and Clark left St. Louis, Missouri, This presented a new dilemma: they needed of Missouri were a natural power source in early summer of 1804 and by October to pick the correct fork. If they choose the for the saw and flour mills and hydroelec- passed the Grand River confluence with wrong fork and had to backtrack, they tricity that fueled the economic and social the Missouri River where the Arikaras would have had to spend the winter in growth of Montana. Dams were built on Indians resided. The Arikaras were farm- the Rocky Mountains. At the Shoshone the falls beginning in the 1880s, and all but ers and often traded with the Sioux to campgrounds, where Sacagawea had been one of the falls, Crooked Falls, have been the south who brought trade goods in captured five years before, Sacagawea significantly altered or submerged. Black exchange for Arikaras grain crops grown reunited with her family, and the Shoshone Eagle Dam (1890), the first hydroelectric mostly on the alluvial soils of the river warriors told Lewis and Clark the location dam in Montana, submerged half of Black bottomlands (Ambrose 2005). Upriver at a of the Nez Perce trail with the Lemhi Pass Eagle Falls in the reservoir behind the dam bend in the Missouri River in present-day that crossed the continental divide. This (Federal Works Agency 1939). Rainbow North Dakota, the Corps built a winter information enabled the Corps to cross the Dam, built in 1910, significantly altered camp near Mandan villages next to the Rockies to the Snake River, a tributary of Rainbow Falls (Sanders 2003; Hebgen Missouri River. At Mandan, they met a the Columbia River. 1914), and the reservoir behind that dam French Canadian, Toussaint Charbonneau, submerged Colter Falls. Ryan Dam, built with his 16-year-old wife, Sacagawea, who DAM BUILDING ERA in 1915, has a hydroelectric powerhouse was captured from the Shoshone Tribe that The Falls of the Missouri River (Great that covered a large portion of the 27 m occupied land near the headwaters of the Falls, Montana) were one of the most awe- (87 ft) high waterfall, the largest of the five Missouri River at Three Forks, Montana.