Labeling wild rivers insane licenses damming that later produces its own floods

Evidence

Regarding the rationalizing of irrational rivers, Maxim Gorky observed that Soviet dam builders sought to make “mad rivers sane” (quoted in McCully, Silenced Rivers, 17). The discourse of insanity is an insistent one, attached by megadam proponents to “wild” rivers and by opponents to the impact of damming on floodplains, deltas, and rates of flow and silting that result in longer and more catastrophic floods. Janet Abramovitz, for example, depicts the predictable 1993 floods of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers as a direct result of overdamming, providing “a dramatic and costly lesson on the effects of treating the natural flow of rivers as a pathological condition.” — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 1186

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Nixon’s broader thesis about how euphemistic framing (discourse of insanity, sickness) pre-enables harm; also echoes chapter 1’s argument on corporate-funded naming. — connects to: Contradictory engineered water management signals the loss of flood equilibrium — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Other…, 424; Construction of dams was actually destruction of ecosystems
• ADDENDUM: Directly supports the trees/landpiece infrastructure theme about how development narratives render rivers pathological before damning them.

Broader Connections

• Construction of dams was actually destruction of ecosystems #expands (0.78)