That article is just one of many talking about the impact of the floods currently happening along the Mississippi River. I've mostly just been seeing news about impacts on human life though, and not so much on the environment.
The truth is, floods are pretty good for the land. River sediment would typically get deposited on the top soil, making for some of the best farm land the world has to offer. With all these flood controls in place, this valuable sediment ends up washing away out to sea.
Of course I'm not suggesting to just let the place flood. That water is poisoned and contaminated now anyway, so it would likely do more harm to the farmland than good. I will suggest not living so close to a river though, especially one as big as the Mississippi.
Rivers flood. It's what they do. Don't build so much stuff near them.
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/ASK/floods.html
I found this nice "Ask an Earth Scientist" article about this topic. My favorite part is: "A wise society, in my opinion, would reap the benefits of flooding and avoid many of the negatives if they would choose to build cities in ways that can accommodate flooding without trying to avoid it. Attempting to go against nature is almost certainly a loosing prospect in the end."
Let's be a wise society.
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