Big Muddy National Fish and Wildlife Refuge Clark was considerably different from today's river. The historic Missouri was a broad, slow-moving, shallow river with braided channels. These past river conditions created a haven for wildlife, which included vast floodplain forests of giant trees, marshes, and even wet prairies. Today's river is channelized. It is deeper and faster, and controlled by levees, dikes, and other containment structures. These controls make the river more navigable and the surrounding floodplain ideal for agriculture. The Big Muddy Refuge is allowing the Missouri River to be a river again, to enter its floodplain. This occurs during minor flood events. Management has created
Muddy River (Massachusetts) flows through a conduit under Route 9 and into a narrow park called the Riverway, from which it flows through three culverts: the Riverway Culvert, the Brookline Avenue Culvert, and the Avenue Louis Pasteur Culvert. The Muddy River continues from the Fens toward its connection with the Charles River via the Charlesgate area, running through a stone-paved channel surrounded by a narrow strip of parklands. In a series of stone bridges and tunnels, it passes under Boylston Street, Massachusetts Turnpike, Commonwealth Avenue, Storrow Drive, and a series of elevated connecting ramps (the Bowker Overpass). In its natural state, the outlet