Atchafalaya+JM

- The fact that water is flowing everywhere
===="In each decade since about 1860, the Atchafalaya River had drawn off more water from the Mississippi than it had in the decade before" -This is significant here, he means that ever since 1860 the water is declining. I think McPhee is giving the message of the awareness of the rivers and water.==== ===="As the Atchafalaya widened, and deepened, eroding headward, offering the mississippi an increasingly attractive alternative, it was preparing for nothing less than an absolute capture: before long, it would take all of the Mississippi, and itself become the master stream"- Again here, McPhee is giving awareness about the water in the rivers.==== ====" As the mouth advances Southward and the river lengthens, the gardient declines, the current slows and sediment builds up the bed. Eventually it builds up so much that the river spills to one side. Major shifts of that nature have tended to occur roughly once a millenium." - McPhee, is just trying to show the changes happening on Earth, regarding water ways and river.====

-Over time the water levels of the Atchafalaya and the Mississippi have differed and increased significantly.
====-The article talks a lot about rivers in relation to the Atchafalaya and the water worries of our ecological matters. They say that in the future sometime, there is going to be a water shortage. This is just a fact, and to know that this articles was published in 1987, then back then, scientist and ecologists has reconized this water crisis, and realize we have to do something.====

==== “In southern Louisiana, the bed of the Mississippi River is so far below sea level that a flow of at least a hundred and twenty thousand cubic feet per second is needed to hold back salt water and keep it below New Orleans, which drinks the river. Along the ragged edges of the Gulf, whole ecosystems depend on the relationship of fresh to salt water, which is in large part controlled by the Corps. Shrimp people want water to be brackish, waterfowl people want it fresh—a situation that causes National Marine Fisheries to do battle with United States Fish and Wildlife while both simultaneously attack the Corps.” ====

- Also how the river is controlled is also described briefly in here.
====- McPhee truly gets to his point and conveys the message of climate change, and ecology and the environment, which relates to the heading "reporting on the environment". I think it is very descriptive and informative about rivers, nature and our environment. ==== ==== Overall, i think McPhee is just "putting it out there", the idea of rivers, water ways, terrains, glaciers, land... etc. changing and decling on earth today and for now on, in the future. It is reality. This piece was written in 1987, therefore it was happening then to, but people didn't notice it or didn't think about it too much, today it is more prevalent. And therefore, McPhee is just "putting it out there". to give people a reality check, tell them the truths about what is going on around us and look at our surroundings. There are probably lots of other articles McPhee has written that just gives a person an idea of things in their surroundings.====