Reverse Course: Life after the levee breach in Dogtooth Bend, Illinois

Here & Now Anytime

NPR

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4.1 • 953 Ratings

🗓️ 27 June 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

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Summary

In 2016, the Mississippi River punched a hole in the Len Small levee, built to protect farmland along an S-shaped curve in the river known as Dogtooth Bend. That hole was never repaired. Here & Now's Chris Bentley reports on how some farmers in the area have had to give up their land. And, John Ruskey calls the Mississippi River "a creative force" that sculpts the landscape and rejuvenates the people who experience it up close. But climate change is making that force stronger and more destructive. Bentley took a canoe ride with Ruskey and reports on the future of the river. Then, Bentley and Here & Now's Peter O'Dowd reflect on their reporting along the Mississippi River and share thoughts on how the river has shaped the history and landscape of North America.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for here and now anytime comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink software for technical computing and model-based design.
0:09.2	MathWorks accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at MathWorks.com.
0:17.4	WBWR Podcasts, Boston.
0:25.6	Pretty soon, the levee is going to break somewhere along the route because we can't maintain it in the new world.
0:29.6	In another 150 years, I'm pretty sure that the river is actually going to reclaim everything that is lost.
0:35.6	Flooding on the Mississippi River has forced some farmland going to reclaim everything that is lost.
0:44.1	Flooding on the Mississippi River has forced some farmers to give their land back to nature,
0:46.4	and they won't be the last. This is here and now anytime from NPR and WBUR.
1:00.4	I'm Chris Bentley.
1:05.7	Today on the show, we bring you the second half of My and Peter Odoud's reporting along the Mississippi River.
1:12.8	Our journey continues with a look at what happens when flooding is so overpowering that farmers
1:18.7	have no choice but to retreat and give land back to nature. Also, a little later, we'll
1:24.8	experience the river in a way few people get to in a canoe
1:28.7	to get a new perspective on the Mississippi.
1:31.8	I come back again and again and am rewarded every time I come out here, see something
1:39.4	or learn something new, or I just have a peaceful moment in a world that it's becoming more and more difficult
1:47.2	to find peaceful places.
1:49.0	Driftwood Johnny is our guide coming up at about 10 minutes.
1:58.0	But first, since we're talking about flooding along the Mississippi River and how people are dealing with more frequent floods,
2:05.4	there's a quote that really rang true after something I saw near the bootheel of Missouri.
2:10.7	Tony Morrison once said, they straightened out the Mississippi River in places to make room for houses and livable acreage.
2:18.1	Occasionally, the river floods these places.
	...

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