I don't even know where to begin. First, all of humanity has screwed with waterways for our entire existence. The West, The East, The North, The South. Hell, B

I don't even know where to begin. First, all of humanity has screwed with waterways for our entire existence. The West, The East, The North, The South. Hell, Beavers do it. But the earliest human civilization was borne on rivers, and grew out of screwing with water ways. For irrigation, for navigation. Every major river in the world that hosts civilization has been MASSIVELY screwed with for that civilization's survival - consistency and predictability is important for us to not DIE, never mind, thrive. That means managing seasonal flooding. That means maintaining a navigatable depth for shipping. That means (eventually, once we woke up) controlling waste flow and filtration, etc. The Mississippi supports tens of millions of people and tens of billions of dollars of economic activity. OF COURSE, humanity was going to make it reliable. There were externalities. Now they're going to deal with those EXACTLY the same way as they did before - yes - with more engineering. "Man decides to cure disease with medicine. The medicine doesn't work. Solution? More medicine! Lunacy!" Well, yes, but DIFFERENT medicine. Just cuz they're both medicine (engineering) doesn't mean that this medicine (adjusting levee routing) is the same as this other medicine (originally having built the levees in the first place.