Is this the new "norm"?

biggill wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Angler II wrote:</div>
Farmers drain tile directly into creeks, streams and rivers more so now than ever before.

Where is the source for this?

The U of M estimates there’s around 19000 miles of drain tile in this state, and it’s increasing by roughly 25% each year.

Pretty sure that’s more now than ever before

Dutchboy wrote:

Very simple. When you pave and concrete the roads and install drain tiles in the fields the water has to go somewhere.

FASTER

The locks and dams on the Mississippi have created a nightmare in balancing the water levels. I would not want the job of doing that at the Corps level. On top of that our weather has gotten wayyyy more radical in the last ten years but the problem for that isn’t a state or a US problem, its world-wide.
Right here at home the government sells pollution credits to manufacturers so they can use those instead of complying with emission standards. The EPA and PCA levee fines and the fines cost less than complying. Change that and its a start at change from this corner of the world. India and China puke out toxic emissions by the tons every year as neither have any standards in place for air quality.

Closer to home I think our weather is more stable because we live further north and have cold air boundaries that hold bad stuff in check to a certain degree. but now that we’re seeing 70’s and 80’s already, I think we’ll be seeing our share. The idea of a rain shower dropping 2″ in an hour is something we heard of maybe once every three or four years but now happens several times a season. Now couple that with the amount of non-porous surfaces we live on and the way run-off and storm water is handled and you’ll have your new norm question answered. Honestly, when I look all around the US and the crap weather other areas are plagued with I think we’re on the winning end of all this.

you may have the same type of situation going on in the Mississippi valley due to some of the priority changes.

The dams on the Mississippi were never planned to control flooding. It’s always been to keep a 9′ channel open for commercial traffic.

I can’t speak of the dams upstream of Lock and Dam #3 but Red Wing has had all of it’s rollers up out of the water allowing as much water as possible to head down stream. I very much doubt they are holding anything back down stream as the Corp would be concerned about damage to the dam.

I spoke with one River Rat that’s been on Pool 4 since the 50’s and he >felt< there isn’t any more or less flooding then in the past. I on the other hand with only 15 years under my belt, feels like the OP. Whether it floods or not, the river rises faster then it did in my past.

I did take a look at the USGS flow history for the Kettle and Upper St. Croix and both have been predominantly above normal since the end of March. I can’t imagine there’s a lot of drain tile up there. We have family property on the upper Kettle system which has a lot of muskeg/black spruce bogs so there should be some built in water retention.

Maybe there’s just been that much water so far. I could see a case where there may be more run off in some of those watersheds if the ground is still saturated.