The United States repeatedly experiences floods along the Midwest's large rivers and droughts in the arid Western States that cause traumatic environmental disasters with huge economic impact. These problems can be alleviated with an integrated approach and comprehensive solution. Withdrawing flood water from the Mississippi River and its tributaries will mitigate the damage of flooding and provide a new resource of fresh water to the Western States. The existence of a trend of increasing heavy precipitation and flooding on the Midwest's Rivers is supported by a growing body of scientific literature that documents the effects of climate change since 1993. Flooding in Iowa, North Dakota, Tennessee, Arkansas and along the Mississippi River from 1993 to 2010 are prime examples. The Colorado River Basin and the western states are experiencing a protracted multi-year drought. Fresh water can be pumped via pipelines and aqueducts from areas of overabundance/flood to areas of drought or high demand. Calculations document 10 to 60 million acre feet (maf) of fresh water per flood event can be captured from the Midwest's Rivers and pumped via pipelines to the Colorado River and introduced upstream of Lake Powell, Utah, also to destinations near Denver, Colorado, and used in areas along the new water transportation routes. Water users of the Colorado River include the cities in southern Nevada, southern California, northern Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Indian Tribes, and Mexico. The proposed starting, end points, and routes of the water transportation routes are documented, including information on right-of-ways necessary for state and federal permits. The National Smart Water Grid™ (NSWG) could create a million new jobs for construction, operation, and maintenance and save billions per year in drought and flood damage reparations tax dollars. The socio-economic benefits include decreased flooding in the Midwest; increased agriculture, and recreation and tourism; improved national security, transportation, and fishery and wildlife habitats; decreased salinity in Colorado River water crossing the US-Mexico border; and decreased eutrophication/hypoxia (excessive plant growth and decay) in the Gulf of Mexico to name a few. The sale of captured flood water could pay for the National Smart Water Grid™. The cost benefit analysis indicates that the NSWG should be net beneficial. A detailed feasibility studies for each pipeline/aqueduct transportation route is warranted.The Second Edition expands flooding and recent climate change data, emphasis on cost/benefit analysis, details on the engineered features such as pipes, pumps, aqueducts, and patent pending modified levees.Water is a $400 billion industry, the third largest behind oil and electricity. The U.S. has a Strategic Petroleum Reserve and needs a comparable Strategic Water Reserve. The National Smart Water Grid could become a Strategic Water Reserve and augment the National Energy Grid. The availability and sustainability of freshwater is the most important issue facing humanity in this century.

Cairo, Illinois to the Gulf of Mexico Mile 953 A.H.P. to Mile 22 B.H.P.

Beyond Control reveals the Mississippi as a waterway of change, unnaturally confined by ever-larger levees and control structures. During the great flood of 1973, the current scoured a hole beneath the main structure near Baton Rouge and enlarged a pre-existing football-field-size crater. That night the Mississippi River nearly changed its course for a shorter and steeper path to the sea. Such a map-changing reconfiguration of the country’s largest river would bear national significance as well as disastrous consequences for New Orleans and towns like Morgan City, at the mouth of the Atchafalaya River. Since 1973, the US Army Corps of Engineers Control Complex at Old River has kept the Mississippi from jumping out of its historic channel and plunging through the Atchafalaya Basin to the Gulf of Mexico. Beyond Control traces the history of this phenomenon, beginning with a major channel shift around 3,000 years ago. By the time European colonists began to explore the Lower Mississippi Valley, a unique confluence of waterways had formed where the Red River joined the Mississippi, and the Atchafalaya River flowed out into the Atchafalaya Basin. A series of human alterations to this potentially volatile web of rivers, starting with a bend cutoff in 1831 by Captain Henry Miller Shreve, set the forces in motion for the Mississippi’s move into the Atchafalaya Basin. Told against the backdrop of the Lower Mississippi River’s impending diversion, the book’s chapters chronicle historic floods, rising flood crests, a changing strategy for flood protection, and competing interests in the management of the Old River outlet. Beyond Control is both a history and a close look at an inexorable, living process happening now in the twenty-first century.

Dwelling along the Mississippi River, the Tennessee state line, the Tenn-Tom Waterway, and the Gulf of Mexico are a trove of characters with fascinating lives and histories. In Rowdy Boundaries: True Mississippi Tales from Natchez to Noxubee, author James L. Robertson weaves these stories to reveal a tapestry of Mississippi’s border counties and the towns and people that occupy them. From his unique vantage as a former Mississippi Supreme Court justice and seasoned lawyer, he documents the legal, geographical, and biographical tales revealed during his journeys along and within the state lines. The volume features the true stories of musicians, authors, portrait painters, and football players, as well as political activists, educators, politicians, and judges. Also featured are tributes to noteworthy newspaper editors and columnists for their many contributions over the years. Robertson covers pivotal moments in Mississippi history, including the Mississippi Married Women’s Property Act of 1839, the development of Chinese culture in the Mississippi Delta, and 1964 Freedom Summer. He does not shy away from the tragedies of the past, discussing lynchings and murders that still haunt the state today. From ghost towns in Jefferson County to the Slugburger Festival in Corinth, stopping en route for a mint julep in Columbus, Robertson puts a human face on Mississippi history and tells a good yarn along the way.

Earning a captain’s license just got easier Whether you are an avid boater seeking to improve your seamanship and get a discount on boat insurance or aspire to start a business running a charter, sightseeing, or whale-watching boat, this revised and updated Fifth Edition is the only resource you need to obtain the captain’s license you want, including the six-passenger “Six-Pack,” Master and Mate Inland, Master and Mate Near Coastal, and Sail/Auxiliary Sail Endorsement. Get Your Captain’s License is thorough enough to replace costly classroom instruction with its 350 pages of seamanship and navigation tutorials and more than 1,500 questions and answers from the Coast Guard exams. Plus, the new associated website simulates taking actual exams and provides instant feedback that lets you pinpoint the areas you need to study.