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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (34076)	6/27/2011 2:46:18 PM
From: Land Shark	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 36917

Missouri River Compromise 2:18 AM, Jun. 25, 2011 \| 16Comments Zoom Water roils out of the spillways below the Gavins Point Dam in the Missouri River near Yankton, S.D., Tuesday, June 14, 2011. Later, the releases hit 160,000 cubic feet of water per second. Everyone is looking for a place to lay blame for the flooding caused by unprecedented amounts of water barreling down the Missouri River, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is the favored scapegoat. That is fair only to the extent that the Corps manages water moving through the dams and levees along the 2,300 miles of the Missouri. Blame must also be shared by a host of others who over the past 75 years decided to tame this once meandering river. Re-engineering the Missouri River represented one of the nation's largest single public works projects. It was initiated during the Great Depression as a massive economic-development program, and to this day it affects the landscape, the environment, wildlife and lives of people in 10 states and beyond. The project achieved its mission of straightening the river for shipping and navigation, striking a balance between routine floods and droughts, and creating hydroelectric power and recreational opportunities. But all this has come with enormous human and environmental costs, including eliminating wildlife habitat and starving downstream floodplains of nourishing sediment that has had serious consequences as far south as the Gulf of Mexico. Critics have long argued the man-made changes to the Missouri exacerbate the flood risk, and some go so far as to say they could yet cause a catastrophe if even one of the dams fails, causing a succession of failures in a domino effect that would send several years' worth of snowmelt and rainwater all the way downstream to the Mississippi, wiping out cities, infrastructure and farms. If that were to happen -- and the experts insist it won't -- it would be the result of decisions made to build this massive water-management system in the first place, not just decisions made by the engineers at the floodgates controls today. The Corps' charge is to manage the hundreds of square miles of water in six reservoirs on the river's main "stem," beginning at Fort Peck in Montana and ending at Gavins Point in South Dakota. Critics of the Corps' performance are legion, in part because the engineers answer to many masters, ranging from environmentalists and fishermen to barge operators. This spring, the critics accuse the Corps' policy for flooding that is likely to be with us for the remainder of the summer. These critics -- including Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad and members of Congress -- say the Corps should have released more water from the reservoirs earlier to make room for runoff. The Corps responds by pointing out that it did, in fact, begin emptying the reservoirs to hold massive snowmelt from the Rockies, which received far more snowfall last winter than normal. That much they knew. What they did not know was that there would be record rainfall within the Missouri River's watershed, including another 5-inch downpour last week. That has forced the engineers to release water at unprecedented rates, which is putting extraordinary pressure on downstream levees that may not hold for months on end. Much of this criticism benefits from hindsight, of course. Without the unexpected rainfall, the Corps would look good today. And, it could simply draw down the reservoirs as insurance against the possibility this might happen every year. But another set of critics would rise up to complain about the loss of recreation, cheap electricity and navigation capacity for barges. Indeed, the current water-management plan that governs the release of water from the six reservoirs was just updated within the past few years after extensive public comment and participation by federal, state and local authorities. Members of Congress from states in the Missouri watershed have called for hearings on the floods, which will be an opportunity to re-examine the Corps' flood-control strategy in light of the likelihood that, with climate change, these extraordinary heavy winter snows and springtime deluges will become ordinary. Which also means the Corps should consider narrowing the mission of the Missouri dams to control floods. That will require the involvement of all stakeholders to share the blame when future critics go looking for scapegoats for the resulting lack of electricity, shipping channels and boating opportunities when there is an inevitable drought in the Midwest.