southern MN | MNfarmer85 - 6/26/2024 01:07
Used to be a lot more farmland in the MN River Valley south of me, now a lot of the fields closer to the river are just growing willows and weeds. Too many flood events later in the spring and early summer to risk a crop.
Cities build in lower areas closer to a river, put up dikes/levees, so the water flow gets restricted and backs up further upstream. Some areas have more floodplain than others, big difference between the Red River Valley and the MN River Valley when you compare.
That said an event that drops 12"+ of rain in a day wasn't on the minds of most just a few years ago. Kind of hard to predict what is going to happen when that much water has to go somewhere.
When I was a kid those flood plains in the bottom of the Minnesota valley were flat clear fields and pastures. Flooded every year, planted late and got a crop 3 out of 5 years I think was the formula for farming a property or not.
Dnr/ etc programs bought up most of these flood plains and has grown up in a thicket of woods and brush so thick.
Flood water runs through this much slower than it used to run over the farm land.
Water piles up runs slow has to get deeper.
Had a county road built to a 10 year flood level. Would flood every 5 years or so. They built it up to a 25 year flood level. Now it floods over every other year. In the past flood waters could get away at the lower level. Now the water has to pile up higher, before it can top the road.
Town had flooding issues in the 90s, as everyone did. They built a dike to protect a block wide, 10 block long area. When the water gets there now, it has to flow deeper, to make up for less width.
Other end of town had a gravel road that flooded over if a dog watered a fire hydrant. Didn’t slow river flow much if the water got just a bit high. Now it is a 4 lane built up, all water needs to pass through the bridge opening. Water has to get higher if it can’t get wider.
Everything we do here ends up slowing and restricting the flow of the river.
Paul |
Sat imagines of the flooding
