Dams & Locks
Those magnificent natural features, the Falls of St. Anthony and the whitewater rapids of the Mississippi River Gorge, are in the heart of Minneapolis. But neither can be seen by Minneapolitans — or anyone else.
The falls and the rapids have been buried — the former under concrete, the latter under water — for decades. That resulted from government and corporate programs that long ago converted the free-flowing Mississippi in Minneapolis into a dammed and dredged industrial stream, and which still shackle it.
The North Star Chapter wants to change that. Its "Let the River Run" campaign, launched in June 2003, calls for restoring the falls and the rapids. It also calls for ending barge traffic on the Mississippi within Minneapolis, where the rivers flow is restricted by three sets of locks and dams built by the Army Corps of Engineers to facilitate commercial navigation.
Dam Removal & River Restoration
Dams are being removed increasingly across the country as a means of restoring rivers and purely from an economic perspective, to get rid of aging pieces of infrastructure. Dams have been placed across virtually every major river in the U.S., except just a few, altering river ecosystems in a multitude of ways. Dams alter hydrologic and sediment transport pathways while blocking movement of fish and other aquatic organisms such as mussels. They have been recognized as one of the major threats to the preservation of aquatic biodiversity in the U.S. (Richter et al. 1997).
Yet dams play a crucial role in water management, providing benefits such as flood control, river navigation, water supply and hydropower. (Though no dam provides all these functions, for example the Ford Dam in the Twin Cities serves no significant flood control function, but provides hydropower and commercial shipping.) Balancing costs and benefits, as well as people's perceptions of dams (correct or not), make difficult decisions regarding maintaining or removing dams that are aging or dysfunctional.