By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Even as northwest Missouri begins a long recovery from the latest Missouri River flooding, a lawsuit filed against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers moves forward.
Federal Judge Nancy Firestone ruled last year the Corps’ management of the Missouri led to some of the flooding since 2007. Firestone made an exception for the flood of 2011, which she said grew beyond the ability of the Corps of manage.
One of the attorneys involved, Seth Wright of St. Joseph, says the 372 farmers, landowners, and business owners represented in the lawsuit deserve compensation for losses sustained during persistent flooding.
“So, there’s been great loss to farmland, land reclamation, crop loss, all along the river and it has happened in 2007, 2008, 2010, ’11, ’13, ’14, ’15, ‘16’, ’17, ’18, and now ’19,” Wright tells St. Joseph Post. “And the floods are escalating. We’re seeing catastrophic flooding, 500-year floods, that are occurring now on a more frequent basis.”
The lawsuit, Ideker Farms, Inc. et al. v. United States of America, contends the Corps of Engineers violated their 5th Amendment rights by taking private property without just compensation.
“So, the government, what we have said, has come in, they have perpetrated a flow-age easement across our client’s property through the flooding that they need to compensate us for,” Wright says.
The lawsuit strikes at the heart of how the Corps manages the Missouri River.
It claims that since the Corps changed the Master Manual which guides its management in 2004, the river is more prone to flooding. The lawsuit charges the Corps made construction of habitat for fish and wildlife a higher priority than flood prevention. It contends the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service directed the Corps to protect the endangered species the least tern, the piping plover, and the pallid sturgeon.
The case has moved to its second phase in which the court will determine damages. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit claim there have been 100 flood events along the Missouri River since 2007. One damage estimate pegged the losses at $300 million.
Click here for more on the lawsuit from the Polsinelli law firm.