Watershed pioneers: Longtime participants in the watershed program, from the left, Bueford Cooper, Gerald Parker, John Meek and Bryan Cox stand at an watershed structure in the West Fork of Big Creek Watershed, near Bethany.
Sixty years after the first of 1,182 flood-prevention structures were built in Missouri with federal financial and technical assistance, landowners who have witnessed the before-and-after effects of heavy rain are still praising the benefits of the watershed projects.
“Panther Creek used to flood almost every time it rained, but it hasn’t flooded at all since they put the structures in, including 1993,” said John Meek, who farms near Ridgeway in Harrison County.