Appeal Seeks to Restore Missouri River's Natural Flow

WASHINGTON, DC, July 13, 2004 (ENS) - Conservationists have appealed a recent federal court ruling that allows the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to avoid making changes to its operation of six Missouri River dams this summer. Current management of the river fails to protect endangered fish and birds, according to the conservation groups, who contend the Bush administration has little interest in trying to resolve one of the nation’s longest running environmental disputes.

Missouri River in South Dakota (Photo courtesy National Park Service)

During the past decade the Army Corps management of the Missouri River has prompted a slew of lawsuits, as competing interests upstream and downstream battle over flows needed for barge traffic, recreational interests, hydroelectric power and wildlife.

The federal agency has disrupted the natural flows of the river since the 1940s through its management of six main stem dams and reservoirs in upper part of river.

Conservationists, along with upstream recreational and fishing interests, are keen to see the natural flows restored – the downstream barge industry says such restoration would spell economic disaster.

Last month Judge Paul Magnuson of the U.S. District Court of Minnesota approved the latest Army Corps plan, which allows the federal agency to release high volumes of water to ensure summer water levels can support barge shipping.

Judge Paul Magnusun of the U.S. District Court of Minnesota (Photo courtesy Open World Leadership Center)

All three species are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act.

A Biological Opinion issued in 2000 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service concluded that the three species are likely to go extinct on the Missouri River unless the Army Corps restores more natural spring and summer flows from its dams.

The Fish and Wildlife Service’s recommended flow changes were to take effect in 2003, but the Corps defied a court order before finally complying with the recommendations for three days.

Last summer Judge Magnuson ordered the Corps to revise the plan and told the military agency to abide by recommendations from federal biologists to alter flows to protect the endangered species.

The revised management plan rests in part on an amended Biological Opinion produced by the Fish and Wildlife Service in close consultation with the Army Corps last December.

Gavins Point dam on the Missouri River in South Dakota (Photo courtesy USACE)

They question the validity of the amended Biological Opinion, noting that state agencies along the river testified that no new scientific information is available that warrants revising the original opinion.

In addition, Interior Department political appointees removed many of the Fish and Wildlife Service scientists who had been working on recommendations to save the imperiled species, and the amendments were prepared in three weeks and finalized without public hearings or scientific peer review.

Although the document called for strict measures to protect the pallid sturgeon, it offered few details about what was needed to safeguard the endangered birds and did not recommend significant changes to water flows.

The Army Corps based its new plan in part on those recommendations, and said it would create some 1,200 acres of habitat for the pallid sturgeon along the Missouri River to replace the lower flows.

An endangered pallid sturgeon in the Missouri River (Photo by Ken Bouc courtesy Nebraska Game and Parks Commission)

But in his ruling last month, Magnuson said the Corps did not act "arbitrarily and capriciously" in the development of the new plan and ordered that the plan remain in effect.

The endangered least tern on the Missouri River (Photo courtesy USACE)

"The court owes it to our children and grandchildren to uphold the law and prevent bunk science from erasing America's wildlife legacy," said Tom France of National Wildlife Federation.

In addition to appealing the approval of the entire plan, several of the conservation groups are challenging the finding that the Army Corps has satisfied its requirement to create habitat for the pallid sturgeon.

"The fingerprints on the document approving these 1,200 acres of purported habitat are not those of the scientists that inspected it," said Rebecca Wodder, president of American Rivers. "This does not live up to the spirit of the law and we will ask the court to rule that it does not satisfy the letter of it, either."

The headwaters of the Missouri River arise in the Rocky Mountains of Montana. From its most remote source, the Missouri-Mississippi River travels approximately 3,800 miles to the Gulf of Mexico, making it the fourth longest river system in the world with the third largest drainage basin.