Taming the Upper Mississippi: My Turn at Watch, 1935-1999

works and infrastructure improvements which led to the most significant change in the river's history. During that period, American universities across the country started civil and mechanical engineering curricula. On the local level, there was a need to improve public works, including water systems, sanitary works, transportation, and drainage necessary for a better quality of life.

William Klingner's first job was with the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Shortly thereafter, he joined a partnership in Quincy, Illinois, specializing in surveying, drainage, and engineering. Projects with both the CCC and private practice initially included erosion protection along tributary streams and rivers. The private practice projects also involved numerous water systems for smaller cities. Community sewer systems followed a few years later. The locks and dams increased seepage and water levels. The higher water elevations created the need to improve drainage and flood protection along agricultural levee and drainage districts in both the Upper Mississippi and Illinois rivers. Large drainage district projects, such as the Sny Island Levee and Drainage District, involved the first major sedimentation basins in the Upper Mississippi.

In 1954, Klingner was a founding member of the Upper Mississippi Flood Control Association. For forty years he testified annually in Washington, D.C. to federal river resource and infrastructure committees, and he served as president of the association for twenty of those years. Klingner's "turn at watch" resulted in a unique understanding and appreciation of the Mississippi River's history, its problems and its possibilities.

Along with civil engineering, William H. Klingner had a special interest and talent in landscape architecture. During his career he designed numerous parks and recreational facilities. He served as Quincy Park District Engineer from 1946 to 1998. Projects in later years combined the two fields into creative riverfront parks and wildlife areas.

Numerous individuals suggested the writing of this book. As a civil and environmental engineer (and the youngest of Dad's seven children), I recognized the importance of his story. However, the greatest interest and encouragement came from the drainage and levee districts. During Klingner's career, nearly every drainage district, from the bootheel of Missouri to the Illinois and Wisconsin border, utilized his talents. Quoting from memory, he provided a precise, definitive account of river history and federal legislation. River elevations and even specific pump station elevations, pump capacities and discharge rates on hundreds of projects from sixty-four years ago to the present were recited without hesitation. His sharp memory and common-sense recommendations were greatly respected.

This book is important in that the perspective of the civil engineer, serving the needs of people living along the Mississippi, has not been told. The river valley of the past was not the pristine environment many environmental groups portray. Problems with waterborne disease and inadequate clean drinking water were common to the early settlers. The link of navigation to flood protection and the need for federal involvement were recognized as early as the mid-1800's.

Unfortunately, the general public does not readily understand the economics of adequate flood control and river navigation. Environmental benefits of improving water transportation are often neglected by the media, as are the value of bottomland farms and the role of drainage districts in protecting critical infrastructures. Taming the Upper Mississippi: My Turn at Watch concludes with a course of action we can pursue to see improvements in all major interests of the Mississippi River system: flood protection, navigation, and the environment.

Michael D. Klingner, P.E.