Rivers connect us with distant ecosystems, sculpt our landscape and provide vital water and nutrients to areas far from their source. In effect, rivers give us a sense of place while highlighting our dependence on the health of their entire watershed.
On my regular visits to the Missouri River, west of Columbia, I often ponder the varied sources of the water that passes through our region. Much of the water is derived from snow that fell on the eastern flank of the Rocky Mountains while some was dropped by blizzards and thunderstorms across the Great Plains. A small but significant percentage bubbled from hot springs at Yellowstone National Park or was squeezed from prairie air as it rose along the rugged slopes of the Black Hills. In most cases, the water first flowed through tributaries of the Missouri, including the Milk, the North and South Platte Rivers, the Yellowstone and streams of the Great Plains, such as the Cheyenne, White, Niobrara, James, Big Sioux and Kansas Rivers.
We cannot adequately protect our local ecosystems without paying attention to the health of our rivers and, consequently, of all ecosystems that lie upstream. When rivers are tainted by pollution (industrial, agricultural, urban), diverted for irrigation or dammed for flood control, water supply, recreation or hydroelectric power, the effects are carried downstream, impacting flora, fauna and human communities. While they are natural lifelines, rivers are not immune to our carelessness or to our misguided attempts to control them; in the end, we humans are also victims of the riverine ecosystems that we destroy.
