By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt says the flooding in northwest Missouri this year should prompt the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to re-think how it manages the Missouri River.
The Missouri and its tributaries overflowed their banks and swamped vast amounts of farmland and a number of cities in Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, and Kansas.
Blunt says the adjustments to the master manual which guides management of the Missouri made in 2004 didn’t go far enough to emphasize flood protection. He wishes the Corps had kept more water in the six upstream reservoirs this winter.
“But, they didn’t. And, again, I think there were some extreme circumstances here that we haven’t seen before, but still you would think that we would be able to be anticipating what’s going to happen here in the next weeks as the snow begins to melt and the spring rains come,” Blunt tells the St. Joseph Post. “Neither of these should be big surprises.”
Blunt says the destruction this year seems similar to that of 2011 with a big exception. A dam in northern Nebraska failed, spilling a huge amount of water into the Platte River system which fed the Missouri River system downstream. The Corps, responding to massive flooding in Nebraska, attempted to ease flooding there by opening the gates at the Gavins Point Dam at Yankton, South Dakota, sending huge amounts of water into an already swollen Missouri River.
Blunt is quick to point out that Army Corps of Engineers officials in Omaha and Kansas City simply follow the master manual and shouldn’t be blamed. He says top Corps officials will need to take a long, hard look at its Missouri River master manual in wake of this flood and place more emphasis on flood control, navigation, and drinking water with less concern for environmental protection.
The Corps’ top priority now, according to Blunt, should be to repair the 50+ levees broken over a 350-mile stretch of the Missouri River without interference from Washington, D.C.
Congress should approve disaster assistance for communities and farmers impacted by the flood, according to Blunt. Blunt says the help will be included in the next disaster aid package approved by Congress.
“Which qualifies our state along with Kansas and Iowa and Nebraska for the parts of that appropriated money that they would qualify for,” Blunt says. “And, as we know more later, we may have to put more money in those categories to fully take care of what happened in our four states. But they’ll be included in the next bill we pass or we won’t pass a next bill.”
Blunt believes Congress will also approve agricultural disaster aid through a separate package.
There is a sense of urgency, according to Blunt, as communities and farmland have become vulnerable to northern snowmelt and spring rains entering the system.
“Just the normal spring water, plus the normal spring flooding, if it doesn’t get worse than that, will be harder to deal with this year than it would be if we hadn’t had this unique Platte River-related disaster,” according to Blunt.