Graves says what he heard reinforces his belief that the Corps of Engineers needs to change its priorities.
Among those who testified was Jason Gregory, who operates a farm along the Missouri River between Easton and Stewartsville. Gregory testified on behalf of the Missouri Farm Bureau.
He says Congress and the Corps of Engineers don’t have their priorities straight.
“We believe that the number-one priority, rather than being recreation, needs to be the shipment of goods and services and flood control,” Mr Gregory said.
“Recreation and fish and wildlife should be secondary. Our human needs need to be taken care of first. That also includes water treatment and fresh water. Those need to take precedence over any other.”
Graves agrees. In an interview, the Northern Missouri Congressman said one sticking point in Congress is reauthorization of the Endangered Species Act. Graves says radical environmental groups will do everything in their power to prevent reauthorization.
“They know there are endangered species out there have been recovered, they are no longer endangered,” Graves said.
“They also understand that a lot of the policies in the old Endangered Species Act are failed and place too much emphasis on too little information, and as long as it’s not reauthorized, the old law stays in effect. It needs to be updated. You need to concentrate on species that actually are endangered.”
Graves is also working on legislation to reset the priorities of the Army Corps of Engineers. They are currently juggling competing interests, from recreation to transportation to protection of endangered species.
“What my bill does is make flood control the number one priority. That is the most devastating of all of those priorities when something goes awry.”
He also hopes to continue work to redirect the funding, via the appropriations process, away from habitat recovery and directly to levee control and maintenance.
“The vast majority of funding to the Corps of Engineers goes to habitat recovery,” Graves said, “and everything else gets whatever is left over. We’re going to try to adjust that too.”
In addition to the Farm Bureau and the Corps, Graves heard from drainage district representatives. Holt County Clerk Kathy Kunkle also filed testimony. Kunkle has been an outspoken critic of the Corps’ practice of buying out farmland to mitigate flooding by widening the river and creating shallow-water habitat.