Replying to a message of Joe Bruchis to Mimi Gallandt:

 JB> The Mississippi River has been set on a permanent course, in a similar
 JB> manner, with huge concrete walls and dams. The structures require
 JB> frequent maintenance, along the entire length of the river, as it
 JB> wants terribly to change its course. Even with the strength of these
 JB> structures, the river often weakens them, causing leaks as it
 JB> continues to try to change to its natural course.

The same is true for the Missouri River.  Here the river basin is nearly
five miles wide but the river itself is only about 100-200 yards wide.
It used to meander all over the basin, and the channel moved quite a
bit - it still changes (slowly) down in the southeastern corner of Nebraska
with a process known as 'accretion.'  Accretion happens when silt is dropped
at the inside of a curve and eroded away from the outside; the riverbed moves
ever so slowly.

Some landowners down there are being taxed by the counties in both states (Nebraska
and Missouri).  There is or was a Supreme Court case over the problem some time
back, don't know how it came out.  The basic problem is that the boundary is
defined as the center of the river channel and was surveyed as such way back when;
then the center of the channel moved and the survey didn't...

--- FleetStreet 1.19+