Mississippi River Islands / Han River Islands

The Mississippi River has a lot of islands.  Most are small and natural.  Some are huge and man-made.  I put some effort into showing a bunch of them here in one image.

Most of the islands above the confluence are small and act as wildlife refuges for bald eagles and other pretty things.  Chouteau Island was built by us humans, along with the Chain of Rocks Canal, for our shipping interests.  Currently, Chouteau Island and the two smaller islands next to it are set aside as part of the Confluence Greenway project.  They're set aside for recreational use and are steadily getting more trail connections added to them.  They belong to Illinois and connect the MCT trails to the Riverfront Trail by the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge.

There are future islands planned for the Mississippi as well.  As part of the ongoing plans for the arch grounds, the idea has been floated of using barges filled with dirt to make movable park pieces that can be moored to the shore.  A low-quality rendering pulled from urbanstl looked like this,

Barge parks sound relatively cheap and would make less of an environmental impact.  The St. Louis region has long suffered from developments that make the river narrower, deeper, faster, and more likely to flood.  The city's environmental groups have been trying in vain for years to maintain spillways and wetlands.  Floating barges are much of a threat to the river and can actually clean the water a bit if done right.  I'm not so sure dirt needs to be put in the barges.  A flowing river of mud is what hydroponics is all about.  Still, until I see a rendering that doesn't look stupid, I'm not sold on the idea.

Now let's go to Seoul, South Korea.

This is Seonyudo (선유도)

A lot of the islands in the Han River end up supporting massive highway bridges.  The big bridge here, yanghwa dae gyo, doesn't really interact with the island.  It is filled with fast moving cars, but has a pedestrian walkway on the side that makes the island accessible from the subway on the far bank.  The real story is in that second bridge.

It starts in the Han River Park,

goes up over the water,

and down to the island's observation deck.

 

Once on the island a botanical garden can be enjoyed as well as an urban planning gallery specific to Han River developments.

Seonyudo is an exception.  Most of the other islands are for wildlife.  In fact, they're so remote that a recent movie's plot revolved around a man stranded on one unnoticed by the rest of the city.  It seems he couldn't swim.

Like St. Louis, Seoul has plans for more islands.  They've been expanding linear parks on both banks of the Han and are increasingly calling for things like this,

Don't the riverbanks look amazing?  Why go out into the water?  This is to be an opera house I believe.  Not only are they making the river a bit more flood prone, but they're introducing more parking to what would otherwise be a beautiful riverside park.  This is all part of Lee Myung-Bak's half-baked "Four Rivers Project."  It seeks to dredge the four most important rivers in the country and turn them into revenue generating eco-parks.  It it's about 10% awesome and 90% unfortunate.  It is also defunding every other government ministry (like education).

Then there are proposals made by otherwise decent architects like those at Mass Studies that hope to turn natural and beautiful systems like this,

 

into cancerous nonsense like this,

They hope to make regions of the river into governable districts.  The Han will fill up with fish farms.

The island above is Nodeul.  It is currently covered with gravel and concrete, but I believe it could be a fine nature preserve if allowed to heal.  Here's another view,

Instead, it will be renamed "Han River Art Island" complete with an opera house.

This is certainly an improvement over the Mass Studies rendering.  It looks like the bottom part of the island will be a park and spillway, so it shouldn't drastically affect or be affected by future floods.  Rivers do periodically flood.

Ancient rivers like the Mississippi and the Han have chosen their paths and we should help them to maintain them. 

Millions were spent to preserve wetlands along the Mississippi River in Spanish Lake.  The people of Spanish Lake wasted that when they chose bulldozers and a casino.  How wonderful for the rest of St. Louis that is downstream from them.  Who opposed them?  A group called the "Common Sense Coalition."  Well... we see who won.



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This article is part of a family of articles comparing the Mississippi and Han rivers.

This article relates to the Arch Grounds.