I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. This book started out interestingly and kept my attention most of the way through. Would love to see it in audio form.

Reading something by a person you know and interact with is a balancing act. I wanted to approach this book with no bias for the best chance to be honest, but I have to admit I was hesitant as non-fiction is not necessarily my typical reading fare.

So it sat on my coffee table while I vacillated reading it, but I had made the request for the ARC on Netgalley so I owed the publisher a review.

And am I so glad I overcame my hesitancy. This book was astonishing. I know the bare minimum about infrastructure in America. With most of that revolving around roads and the taxes that pay to fix them because they have impacted me directly at one point or another.

Besides that lack of understanding, I have no real knowledge of the history of our infrastructure. After reading this book, I really feel that is a gaping hole in my education. I had made some serious assumptions about river transport as roads and airfare were developed. This book was a kick in the teeth to how goods are moved from coast to coast.

What really made this book an easy read for me, though, was its feeling of an essay I would have read during my English undergraduate. The similarities drawn to Mark Twain throughout the entire narrative were exactly how a literary doctoral thesis would have been formed. It made the book enjoyable. I felt for the people the way the author wants you to connect to those across America that fight this fight nobody seems to know about.

But they should. The United States are more connected then we are getting presented to us, and we should really understand what effects us in all the infrastructure, not just one politically motivated segment. I have already recommended this to all my co-librarians, but I now recommend it out to the worldwide web.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers Avid Reader and Simon & Schuster for an advance reading copy of "Holding Back the River" by Tyler Kelley. This is a quality entry in a growing collection of books on the history of public works and water in the United States, ranging from shorter works such as those collected in "The Control of Nature" by John McPhee through "Rising Tide," the deep and extensive study of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 by John Barry. Both of those works make appearances later in "Holding Back the River," in which the author covers the ongoing efforts of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to manage the Mississippi River and its major tributaries for navigation, flood control, and seemingly above all else, economic stability. That's not to suggest profitability or even cost recovery for the Corps, as the author makes clear covering how thinly the Corps' efforts have been spread just to keep a lock-and-dam complex operating on the Ohio River just downstream of Louisville. Starting with that vignette and following with another tale of unintended consequences on the upper Missouri River, the focus of Kelley's narrative becomes significantly more clear: the Corps' biggest problem in the Mississippi watershed from top to bottom, is sediment. For decades while attempting to meet their stated goals, the Corps' projects on the upper rivers have starved the system of the sediment that washed from the upper tributaries in all directions through the major confluences around St. Louis to nourish the lower Mississippi River valley for centuries before. The author proceeds then to catch us up on recent Corps efforts along the lower river, from the 2011 floods that saw the activation of the Birds Point-New Madrid floodway in southeastern Missouri to continuing issues in Louisiana. These include a worthwhile recap of several topics from Barry's work on issues related to flood protection that still linger from the early 20th century to McPhee's masterful coverage of the Atchafalaya and its denizens, connecting these to recent Corps work following Hurricane Katrina and the state's renewed recognition of the value of sediment in efforts to rebuild the lower river delta where land loss has slowed, but certainly not stopped, in recent years. Though I wish the author had delved deeper into several issues, especially with growing attention to environmental justice and the ever-present racial divides that the Mississippi River watershed encompasses across much of America, the information and vignettes provided do serve to summarize well the issues faced by the underfunded, and sometimes under-recognized, Corps of Engineers. This arm of the federal government, essentially a public-private partnership, works hard to hold together the center of our country and the foundations of our national economy, with little attention from Congress or the American people except when they're asking for huge (but still underestimated) funding packages or some natural disaster leads to a structural failure or controversial decision that makes national news. "Holding Back the River" by Tyler Kelley makes a worthwhile effort to bring these issues facing the Corps, often relegated to the shadows, into the light of national attention.

A powerful blend of the deeply biographical and intensely technical backdrop of Midwestern waterways and the engineering solutions in place to control them, Holding Back the River is captivating from its opening pages and extraordinarily readable for its technical depth (although I will admit I had to pull up some YouTube videos of how wickets work, among other things). I highly, highly recommend this book for anyone loosely interested in infrastructure, civil engineering, cost-benefit analysis, or just life in the Mississippi floodplain or in towns built around maintaining locks and dams.

Part one focuses on locks and dams, and specifically on Lock and Dam 52 and the men whose job it is to keep it up and running in a barely functional capacity. Through the eyes of Luther Helland and those who work alongside him, the clear danger, the sense of duty, and the immense frustration of the men who kept the most important important dam in the United States operating well into old age come to life. As the dam slated to replace No. 52 -- Olmstead -- was saddled with skyrocketing costs and a timeline that seemed to never near completion, the risks associated with keeping No. 52 in service only got greater. Meanwhile, engineers were capitalizing on the government's blank check to pilot completely new techniques for building dams and were innovating on the spot instead of relying on tried-and-true techniques that would have seen the cost at a fraction of the final bill and the timeline extended by only a few months--a drop in the bucket for a project already 20 years behind schedule. As the Army Corps of Engineers relied on cost-benefit analyses that were heavily manipulated and at times even outright fabricated to justify the spending, Kentucky congressmen were burying the final cost figures in high-stakes legislation needed to end a government shutdown. The lack of accountability was staggering, the results were subpar, and the dismay of the men who built their entire careers and livelihood on Lock and Dam 52 was palpable.

In part two, we meet Twan Robinson, a Black resident of Pinhook, Missouri, smack dab in the middle of the Birds Point-New Madrid floodway that was activated in 2011. When her town was evacuated for the intentional levee breach, no one bothered to inform Twan or her neighbors, who began to suspect they needed to take action when they noticed white farmers expeditiously moving their equipment out of the area. The floodway had not been activated since 1937, but at least at that time the Corps had dropped leaflets from airplanes to warn residents. And then after the water came through and decimated everything in its path, disaster relief was clearly designed to the benefit of those who already had capital. FEMA payments were doled out only to homeowners, and even among them, only to those who owned their homes free and clear. If you had a mortgage, your payment went to the bank. Kelley quotes Professor Junia Howell here: "Natural disasters do not just bring damages, they also bring resources...equal aid is not equitable aid, especially when it is systematically designed to restore property rather than communities." He adds at the end: "In this way, FEMA rewards the wealthy more than the poor, the white more than the Black."

Part three centers on an apparently underacknowledged component of river control: sediment. Sedimentation is a slow-moving threat with next to no intragenerational impacts, leaving it to be excluded from most government BCAs and planning. While the Netherlands, as discussed in the conclusion, plans for floods that have a chance of occurring just once in 1200+ years, the US plans 100 years ahead at the high-end, with 30-50 years a typical benchmark. As our infrastructure ages, these longer-term impacts begin to come into play. Aside from dams getting clogged, water stripped of its sediment behaves differently and carves a deeper path through the earth, and it starves vegetation along its banks. Other policy decisions had an impact here as well: the Clean Air Act regards sediment as a pollutant to be purged, viewing the filtering of the dams as beneficial to the ecosystem. Harvesting sand into lakes became an intentional process--lakes that were sometimes existing sources of potable water for entire communities. Among those impacted by these decisions were the Santee Sioux whose wells were overtaken by "the nastiest water you ever washed your clothes in" as sediment pushed bodies of water near the reservation higher and higher. And while the Santee lost their federal takings lawsuit, white farmers in Iowa and Missouri mostly won theirs.

The book closes with an exploration of water management in the Netherlands, a country about a third the size of Louisiana, with all the flood risk of the Louisiana coast. While the Dutch plan far into the future with a huge margin of error, recognizing the inherent unpredictability of climate disasters, the United States seems to rely on betting on good times.

"Anticipation is the ideology of manifest destiny, of 'fill the earth and subdue it.' Climate change is uncertain, dynamic, and volatile, yet American planners are still determined to outsmart nature as if the planet were a chessboard. Engineers build something big and expensive, and tell the public they're protected. Then a Hurricane Katrina or a Missouri Valley Flood comes along and tears their expensive defenses apart. The public feels betrayed. The engineers excuse themselves, saying 'Sorry. We didn't anticipate that, so we didn't plan for it.' ... America's problem is more than just technical--it's cultural. Katrina inspired the Dutch to rethink their relationship with nature. It inspired the U.S. to build higher walls."

My sincere appreciation to Avid Read Press / Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for the review.

A very in-depth look at the state of our locks and dams on the major mid-west rivers. Rather disturbing to realize that our failure to invest in the infrastructure needed to keep these structures in good repair could cost us in untold damages. The author obviously knows his subject. Perhaps this book would be of great benefit to those in government who are responsible for this area.

Read if you: Are interested in the infrastructure crisis in this country.

I grew up in a New Orleans suburb (and still have family there), so issues about levees, spillways, etc are a big concern. Kelley expertly combines history, technical details, and personal stories to create an important read.

Librarians/booksellers: Definitely purchase if you live in a community near a major American river. Others--this is a good introduction and account of the infrastructure issues facing major river communities in the United States.

Many thanks to Avid Reader Press/ Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.

*This book was received as an Advanced Reviewer's Copy from NetGalley.

Kelley did a decent job at writing about a topic that is, while important, rather niche. I think that there should be more conversation surrounding the infrastructure of america and hopefully this book will start a snowball effect of interest in readers. Somewhat difficult to get through for me as it was not my cup of tea.

Time to revisit the mighty American rivers; to see them as Mark Twain did, on gaudy riverboats, but then to look hard at today's patch jobs on locks and dams. To read this solid work is to sit in the wheelhouse of a tugboat which pushes millions of dollars worth of goods ahead of it on barges, an assemblage longer than the Titanic, to be nudged in and out of massive locks.

Then, to meet the man who, stressed to bad health, masters the lock No. 52, Ohio River, which can take weeks to pass due to miles of barges queuing on both sides, with the occasional eight-day pause in operations to fix wedges which don't work or fit their positions any more.

We see how crops and goods cost so much less and use so much less carbon to transport on wide waterways, which are artificially maintained for the purpose. But they are also maintained to provide regular industry and power, and to protect crops and housing, as we see in the later part of the story.

The town Pinhook that was built where the poor people were sold marginal land, which they reclaimed to grow fine crops, was evacuated and flooded at the last minute to protect downstream cities. Afterwards, the landowners were not allowed to rebuild on the floodplain. Eventually they got new homes. But what of the man we meet right at the beginning, whose flood compensation was so long delayed that he refurbished his house with $100,000 of his own money and then decided not to take out flood insurance any more? Who would do that? Obviously the increasingly heavy and frequent rain kept increasing and frequenting, and he was flooded out again in no time.

I like best the tip to plant trees along the riverbanks. The trees absorbed the force of the rising water and helped silt to settle on fields. After one landowner did this and prospered, the Army Corps of Engineers followed suit for miles.

Be ready for engineering and construction detail, hard work and many seeming contradictions, like why people live in floodplains. Because that is where the good soil is, and river transport, of course. But straightening the bends, clearing the snags, and raising levees instead of wide floodplains, have made this a perilous undertaking in the face of climate change. The book will suit hydrologists and potamolgists, engineers, geographers, geologists and agri students.

We get a helpful map or two of river basins, and notes on P204 - 229. I would have liked photos, but these might be included in the book on sale. I read an e-ARC from Net Galley. This is an unbiased review.

A great history on the trials and tribulations of America's waterways, and coast's past, present, and potential future. A great read full of facts and information on the current issues facing major rivers in America, essential since their engineered conceptions. Covering locks and dams on Mississippi, to floodways and all the issues and controversy surrounding them, to the persistent imposing danger facing the gulf coast as it continues to sink and water level rise.

Not knowing much of river systems on the East coast, I was curious to read this and see some of the environmental issues and engineering that went into taming something that seems so untamable. Little did I know, we do not have as great a hold on Mother Nature's immense power as I previously thought. Through the book, it shows time and time again, that the infrastructures put into place to engineer and protect people from rising waters and lowering land levels, was created with only a short term precedence rather than anticipating for even more drastic, seemingly more common, disasters as an effect of climate change. Time and time again these structures failed against 1 in a 100 year stores that they thought they would never experience. Instead of innovating and addressing issues of more imminent threats, they rebuilt using the same systems susceptible to catastrophic failure.

A bit of a dense read, but still incredibly fascinating, and filled with a plethora of amazing facts about the people who suffered due to these failures, people who were made unkept promises, and those fighting for innovation and experiencing resistance at every turn.

If you are interested at all in environmental sciences, engineering, or the history of the United States waterways, this is a must read for you.

The book is a great one for making you think about the way we try to harness nature. Most specifically here with the major rivers of the US. Most of the focus is on the Missouri, Mississippi and the Ohio, but others are mentioned too. The overuse of dams and locks (which I admit I am not a fan of) and the crumbling infrastructure of highways and bridges in our country gives a different POV.
A lot of reference to Mark Twain, so if you've read some of his work you will understand the comparisons and contrasts of discussion more. As someone who grew up seeing and hearing of the flooding of Native American lands for the Garrison Dam, and seeing the work done by the CCC during the depression era, and all the residual effects to this day, make this book one to give thought to. I am sure you can find examples near you too, and the issues that are still influencing us today.
highly recommend this book - it does a great job of presenting issues that many do not think about, but we all should.

*This book was received as an Advanced Reviewer's Copy from NetGalley.

So I never really realized just what all goes into the infrastructure in our country (or any country for that matter). Sure I have some vague idea about highways, bridges, etc. But something I had never thought about were the waterways. Up until a few years ago, I didn't even know what a lock was. And I only had vague ideas about dams and levees.

This book takes you behind the scenes with all those aspects of river infrastructure and how it is used. And in some cases, why it is failing or the troubles with it. Covering topics like the locks and dams along the Ohio river, to the levees and flood-ways along the Mississippi. And a bunch of other issues and topics as well.

Even though this is non-fiction, about a subject that involves a lot of bureaucracy and technical jargon and notions that you don't run into in day to day life (unless you work in the industry), this was still a compelling book. While I had trouble keeping track of who was who sometimes, in general that didn't really matter for me as I was more interested in the machinery, workings of the river, and other information presented.

I also appreciated that this book went into the socio-impacts of the infrastructure and how it affects different groups of people. Specifically, Black Americans, who were only given limited opportunities for buying land or raising towns are disproportionately affected in flood-ways and in regards to insurance payouts. The effects on Native American land and water rights were also discussed.

A very informative book, on a subject that I'm sure only a rare few think about if they aren't in the industry.

Review by M. Reynard 2020

Modern Day Life On The Mississippi. This book frequently references Twain's famous work Life On The Mississippi and essentially constitutes a modern retelling of this text, focusing on the more modern issues and problems of trying to "manage" one of nature's untamable forces. Rather than a dense scientific tome, Kelley instead focuses on the people involved and their specific issues, expanding through time and geography as and where needed to show how the issue at this time and place came to be. Ultimately many of his recommendations are more of the "your mileage may vary" level, but the work he does in establishing the people he speaks of in their times and places is truly breathtaking and will make you want to go back and read Twain's own works to see just how much of life on the Mississippi has changed - and remained constant - over the last 150 or so years. Very much recommended.