The Missouri National Guard submitted these photographs after a recent effort to move water off an access road near a Missouri American Water pump station.

Citizen-Soldiers with Battery D, 1-129th Field Artillery from Independence helped emplace four 12-inch pumps along a Nodaway River levee in Amazonia on July 12.

The pumps are needed to keep water off of a service road used to access the Missouri American Water Company pump stations, said Staff Sgt. Jesse Wills, liaison officer for Andrew County.

“The intent is to put the pumps down to get the water back over the levee to keep these service roads open, that way the Missouri American Water Company can get the wells going and keep providing water to St. Joe and Buchanan County,” said Wills, of Trenton.

Though some water had receded, the road was still waterlogged and water was actively running across from the cornfields that border it, Wills said. The eight-man crew helped American Water and the Andrew County levee district emplace the pumps and lay the pipe.

They thought they were a “continuing committee.”  They weren’t.

An anti-tax committee that campaigned against three recent ballot questions here has been cited and fined by the Missouri Ethics Commission, although the amount they’ll actually pay is dwarfed by the amount they spent campaigning against taxes in Platte County and the St Joseph School District.

The committee could pay just $3,800 to the Commission, for violations during three elections in which it spent more than $80,000 to influence voters.

A filing with the Missouri Ethics Commission outlines evidence that Kenneth Reeder and “Citizens Against Forever Tax”  campaigned in two elections outside their original stated purpose, and failed to terminate the committee in a timely fashion once the April, 2009 election debts were paid.

The filing with the Ethics Commission can be downloaded here.

Count One: Failure To Terminate Timely A Campaign Committee
Count Two: Participation in Elections for Purposes Other Than That for Which the Committee Was Formed

The Commission fined Reeder and the Committee $38,000.   But, if they pay just ten percent of that within 45 days,  and violate no more campaign finance disclosure laws for two years, the rest will be waived.

Reeder and the committee stipulated, or agreed to those facts, but did not admit to “knowingly” violating the campain laws in question.  They contend that the Committee was operating under the mistaken belief that the committee was a “continuing committee,” with the authority to participate in multiple elections.

According to filings, the Committee paid Axiom Strategies $41,551.69 for debts incurred during the April, 2009 campaign vote.  The St Joseph bond issue and operating levy questions both failed.  Under the law, once their contributions exceeded their debts, they were then required to terminate the committee, but did not.

The committee engaged in an ill-fated campaign against a ten-year sales tax continuation in Platte County August 4, 2009.  Out of nearly five thousand votes cast, the tax question passed by just 394 votes.  The Committee reported spending $25,628.87 in its failed campaign in Platte County.

The committee reported spending $11,932.00 to oppose the second vote on the St Joseph school operating levy, which passed on November 3, 2009.  The committee was terminated nearly a year later, on September 8, 2010.

The Commission pleadings lists the various names under which the committee has operated, including “Citizens for Accountable Administrators ,” “Citizens Against Forever Tax,” and “Citizens Against Forever Tax – Debt Service.”

The Ethics Commission also identifies three treasurers of the committee by name.  An investigator says Kenneth Reeder was responsible for filing the campaign reports from February 26, 2009 through October 25, 2009.  The documents identify two other treasurers of the Committee: Ed Catron and James Thomas III.

Despite the announcement Monday that water releases from the Gavins Point Dam will be reduced, the Army Corps of Engineers says now is not the time to let down our guard.

As we reported, it may take us several weeks to notice, but the Corps will soon reduce the amount of water released from the Gavins Point Dam into the Lower Missouri River.

Jody Farhat, the Chief of the Water Management Division, on Monday released an updated, three-week forecast of release activity at six dams upstream.   Within the extended forecast are calls to reduce flows from Gavins Point from 160,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) to 155,000 cfs on July 30th and 31st, and then down to 150,000 cfs on August 1st.

Inflows from upstream will mirror those reductions.

In a briefing Monday, Farhat said those numbers are subject to change “depending on actual conditions.” Although she cautions we “may never see it,” she says “any release reduction will be good news.”

[audio:http://www.stjosephpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/JODY-longform.mp3|titles=JODY longform]

Farhat says they will continue to release 150,000 cfs through the summer, and that’s about double the previous record at Gavins Point.

Bob Ruch of the Corps says now is not the time to get complacent.

“Don’t get to happy about that yet,” Ruch said.

“We need to be extra vigilant at this time. The levees have been wet for a long time down below Gavins Point. I would hate to see anybody drop off in their surveillance or anything else.”

“We need to remain vigilant, and make sure we follow these actions through to the very end.”

Farhat said it could be several weeks after the reductions before we see any changes to local flood stages.   She says water will start to drain back into the river channel from areas where it’s over its banks, and that could keep stages high for several weeks.

For the complete three-week forecast, with a day by day breakout of releases from all six upstream dams,  visit the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers here.

 

The St Joseph City Council announced their selection for the next city manager.

They will promote within and Public Works Director Bruce Woody will take the job.

He’s worked for St Joseph since 1997 Woody will start immediately as the interim city manager. The title will become permanent once a contract is reached with the city.

That relieves Police Chief Chris Conally of the city manager duties who severed as the interim manager since March.

Former city manager Vince Capell was to retire in May, but left the city in march for a job in Texas.

The city hired a firm in January for $23,000 to conduct a nationwide search. Five finalist, including Woody, were announced in June.  

 

A hot and humid air mass over the Midwest has prompted the heat advisory that’s in effect until Tuesday night.

The National Weather Service calls the situation dangerous and it poses an increased risk for heat related illness, especially in northwestern Missouri.

Profuse sweating, headache, nausea, muscle cramps and weakness are all signs of heat exhaustion and heat strokes.  Wear loose fitting clothing, drink plenty of water and if you work outside, schedule frequent breaks,  National Weather Service officials said

Temperatures are expected to reach the upper 90’s to the lower 100’s. Heat a index ranging from 105 to 115 across Missouri.

When a crucial street in Ray County became vulnerable to seepage from a nearby river, Citizen-Soldiers once again answered the call to help.

On July 9, eight Guardsmen from the 220th Engineer Co. (Horiz) out of Festus and the 880th Engineer Co. (Haul) from Perryville arrived on site with their heavy equipment to raise 92nd Street two feet to keep water of off it.

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Not far in the distance from the soggy road is a levee holding back water from the Crooked River. It is at capacity due to the back water off the Missouri River, less than two miles away. Currently three, 36-inch pumps sit atop the levee siphoning water that has made its way on the other side of the barrier.

The sodden 92nd Street is the primary passage to these pumps. Running 24 hours a day, the pumps must be refueled and serviced, and operators need to access them. The secondary road is still passable, but Sam Clemens, chief law enforcement officer for Ray Co., said one heavy rain would close it, as well.

About 2,000 tons of rock from of a nearby quarry in Richmond was trucked in by both the Missouri Army National Guard trucks and local citizens, many of them area farmers.

Staff Sgt. Herb Krattli III, of New Haven, operated a bulldozer to distribute the rock along the road where water had already started to pool. The weight of the 61,000 pound machine also served as a compactor, given the weight pressing down on the road.

‘The Guard has come in and furnished a lot of the expertise we didn’t have,” said Clemens. “Not only manpower, but they brought equipment and they brought their own resources.”

If the pumps could not be accessed, Clemens said flooding would be imminent. It would affect at least half of Henrietta’s 450 residents, not to mention the surrounding farm ground and BNSF Railway tracks.

“If the Guard had not built that road up, there’s a good possibility we would have lost three sets of railroad tracks,” said Clemens. “Right now, that’s their main set of tracks from east to west. The ones up north have been closed due to high water.”

These tracks cut through 92nd Street and now average 140-150 trains a day, according to Clemens, which is double what it normally runs. As trains pass through the area it does suspend the delivery of rock, but progress continues.

“There has been no negative attitude and that is a big help to me,” said Clemens. “The Guard has come in with smiles on their faces saying what do you want done? I don’t know what I would have done without them, and I mean that. I defy anybody to say anything bad about them.”

(Submitted by the Missouri National Guard)

Residents in Buchanan County and the Lake Contrary area are invited to a meeting Wednesday, July 13th in which officials will discuss emergency evacuation plans for the area.

Residents protected by the L-455 levee, along with those from adjacent areas, are welcome to attend.

The meeting is scheduled at 6:30pm, at Lake Contrary Elementary School, located at 1800 Alabama.

The purpose of the meeting is to discuss emergency evacuation of the area in the event of a levee overtop, breach, or failure.

Eighty-six degree temperatures, and some pesky sand boils, prompted a call for volunteers in Elwood to help with sandbagging operations.

Elwood-Gladden Drainage District President Craig Sheppard says it was not an emergency situation, but they needed volunteers to rotate among sandbaggers to prevent health problems caused by the heat.

Elwood officials hoped to get about 25 volunteers to help out.

Some sand boils started percolating next to a relatively new sand berm on the Elwood-Gladden levee north of the railroad bridge on Sunday.

The Missouri River at the St Joseph gauge had dropped beneath 29 feet Sunday, and was expected to drop another foot or so by late Tuesday.

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The Big Tarkio River jumped from eight feet, to nearly 23 feet, in just over six hours Thursday. Then it fell to nine feet by Friday afternoon, just over 24 hours later.

Officials in Craig, Missouri feared for the worst, but Friday afternoon said the racing river had little effect on flooding there.

The river graph measured at Fairfax shows the dramatic rise and fall of the Big Tarkio.