The Missouri River, North America’s longest river at 2,341 miles, starts at the confluence of the Jefferson and Madison Rivers (and then the Gallatin River within 1 mile) near Bozeman, Montana and ends when it joins the Mississippi River near St. Louis, Missouri. Lewis and Clark’s expedition camped at this spot for several days in 1805 and named the 3 converging rivers forming the source of the Missouri River after the organizers of their expedition: President Thomas Jefferson; Secretary of State, James Madison; and Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin. The Missouri River’s watershed encompasses 500,000 square miles and includes portions of 10 US states and 2 Canadian Provinces. Rivers are the veins and arteries of our ecosystem and economy. In a year when the ‘dead zone’ produced by nutrient loads entering the Gulf of Mexico through the Mississippi River is larger than average, we should be working for a ‘healthier’ circulatory system. Through Engineering With Nature, we can leverage nature to heal nature.
