Bill Lambrecht sings the Missouri’s blues
By Jeannette Batz Cooperman
As national political correspondent for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Bill Lambrecht found himself writing with surprising frequency about the Missouri River. “You have politics playing out from the buffalo jumps of Montana to the cloakrooms of the U.S. Senate,” he says. “The biggest issue for the coming years is not terrorism and national security. It’s water. We are in the early skirmishes of water wars that people in the Midwest have never known.” Lambrecht’s new book, Big Muddy Blues: True Tales and Twisted Politics Along Lewis and Clark’s Missouri River, analyzes the multiplayer mudwrestling match for governance of the nation’s longest river.
Lewis and Clark is a great framing device, but why did you really write the book? I wanted to understand this profound disconnect between people and the river. So many people know the Missouri only to drive over it on bridges. This has to do with more than a century of efforts to take control, rein in the Missouri. Politicians’ worth was judged by their capacity to get the Army Corps of Engineers to straighten the river.
Why do we see the river as our enemy? Because of its capacity to devastate. For years, writers have personified the river and imbued it with evil intentions.
Were you tempted to demonize the river, too? No. In its lower stretches, it seemed almost pathetic, like a caged animal—and not necessarily a vicious one.
Upstream, states have realized the potential for recreational use. Why haven’t we? Missouri is way behind in displaying good sense. Our Department of Natural Resources and our planners are extraordinarily fearful because of the wiles deployed by the upstream states to put a big straw in that river and suck the water before it gets down to St. Louis.
Who are the players in this fight? Farmers worry about their land. The barge industry still sees a glimmer of economic potential. Conservationists hope not only to save the plovers and pallid sturgeons, but to reconnect the river with its flood plain. There’s a nascent recreation industry. And there are the Indian tribes who named the river and had civilizations along its banks for centuries.
Who wields the power? The Army Corps of Engineers. There’s precious little democracy. And the Bush administration is finally going to free up the kind of money that could let the Missouri reclaim its glory. How will that money be spent? It’s a very critical time for the future of the river.
