XPost: or.politics, pdx.general   
   From: dhomuth1@comcast.net   
      
   On Tue, 02 Jan 2007 08:45:38 GMT, Lobby Dosser   
    wrote:   
      
   >"Baxter"  wrote:   
   >   
   >> Without those efforts, corps officials say, the Willamette would have   
   >> crested 6 to 8 feet higher in Portland and spilled over the   
   >> sandbag-and-plywood sea wall that Mayor Vera Katz rallied volunteers to   
   >> build along the river.   
   >   
   >Where DID the water go? I has to go Somewhere.   
      
   Into the Pacific.   
      
   Always does.   
      
   Raising the dikes back upstream causes the overall level of the water   
   to rise in at and downstream of the raised dikes, however.  Which is   
   why back in the Midwest, there are "wars" between communities over   
   dike raising.  One raises its to protect itself, and then the other   
   gets flooded, causing it to raise its -- und so weiter.   
      
   No one seems to remember that the better way to deal with such stuff   
   is to allow those rural areas that always did flood to keep flooding   
   as part of the natural cycle.   
      
   Oh - and don't built urban areas and McMansions in the river, then   
   call for gubmint protection later.  Doesn't matter if the river flows   
   in those areas only once every couple of years -- it's still In the   
   river.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)