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The Missouri River dams have impounded large volumes of water used to generate electric power, for recreation on the reservoirs and to irrigate farms. There have been negative impacts of the dams however as well. Besides altering the landscape, the holding of water has eliminated the natural flood pulses each year that plants and animals have adapted to. The dams also withhold vast amounts of sediment that would have slowly traveled down the river  to eventually be deposited  in the wetlands at the Mississippi River delta. This starving of sediments has contributed to the reversal of the growth of the coastal wetlands.