Blowing Up A Levee

NYT:

Chugging north along the Mississippi River, twin barges laden with more than 250 tons of explosive material were ordered to dock at a final staging area on Saturday in an apparent sign that the Army Corps of Engineers was making further preparations to breach a nearby levee, inundating roughly 130,000 acres of Missouri farmland to relieve pressure on the groaning levee system upstream.

Missouri officials sued unsuccessfully last week to try to block the corps from flooding the cropland, a federally mandated flood way that is home to about 200 people. On Saturday, the Eighth Federal Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s decision, clearing the way for the corps to move forward if necessary.

If General Walsh orders the levee breached, the two barges will pump explosives into an 11,000-foot system of pipes buried below the levee. A detonation crew will then blast the levee, allowing water to tear through the gap at an estimated 550,000 cubic feet per second, which they expect to drastically lower water levels upstream. Over the following 24 hours, the crew would blast two more holes in the levee downstream, allowing the water to re-enter the river.

Flooding 130,000 acres of farmland, or losing a 3,000 person town.  That's a lose-lose situation.  So those levees are built with pipes underneath to facilitate demolition?  I didn't know that.