Letter to the Editor

Letter to the Editor

There has been a sharp increase in the number of floods over the last decade. With that being said, hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland have been wiped out. We all know that agriculture is one of Arkansas' primary economic industries. When the drastic flood in 2011 hit, there was an initial estimate of about 500 million dollars lost. That cost did not include farmland repairs, lost farming equipment, or the loss of grains in storage bins. Pat Mulroy brought up a great solution to this problem in her article “Western Water Woes – Is Big Infrastructure the Way to Go?” In this article, Pat Mulroy outlines two solutions that could solve the flooding problems long term. She first proposed building a pipeline from the Mississippi to the Colorado River. The attractive part of this solution is that it kills two birds with one stone.

With the major droughts that have occurred in the western parts of the US, a pipeline from the Colorado to the Mississippi would provide much needed relief to the “Western Water Woes.” The second solution would just be building divergences into the unused marshland in Louisiana.

While that solution would be viable, the natural fertilizer in the Mississippi River could potentially harm the marsh. The marsh is also home to dozens of species of wildlife, and destroying the marshes would be detrimental to those populations. While these changes are just merely ideas, the thought of a long term solution to this problem that is becoming more prevalent should be attractive enough for the Legislature to take notice.

— Morgan Dillon

[ Editor’s Note: Morgan Dillon, 16, is a student at Arkansas School for the Maths, Sciences, and Arts, originally from Marion, tasked with writing a about an issue plaguing the state of Arkansas. I was happy to publish it]

Dear Editor,