New Plan Keeps Missouri River Dispute Rolling Along

By J.R. Pegg

WASHINGTON, DC, March 2, 2004 (ENS) - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released its latest management plan for the Missouri River Friday in a renewed attempt to balance the ecological needs with the economic interests that rely on the river. But the $1.3 billion plan makes only minor changes to the controversial management of the Missouri's water flows and few believe it will resolve one of the nation's longest running environmental disputes.

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat, said the plan "ignores sound science and fails to include proposed changes that have the potential to remedy decades of mismanagement of the Missouri River."

The Army Corps controls flows through the operation of six dams that span the Missouri River in Montana, North and South Dakota, and Nebraska.

In developing the plan for the nation's longest river, the Army Corps "seems to have chosen to base its decisions on politics rather than sound science," Daschle said.

The Army Corps management of the river has caused a slew of lawsuits, as competing interests upstream and downstream battle over flows needed for barge traffic, recreational interests, hydroelectric power and wildlife.

To ensure the river is navigable for barges downstream, the Army Corps releases high volumes of water from its upstream dams.

The Army Corps has refused a court order to lower water flows from Gavin's Point Dam on the Missouri River. (Photo courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers)

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 Paul Magnuson of the U.S. District Court for Minnesota ordered the Army Corps to present him with a final Master Manual by March 19 and told the agency to abide by recommendations from federal biologists to alter flows to protect the endangered species.

But senior Bush administration officials have stated over the last couple of months that they oppose any significant flow changes, and in November the White House removed many of the Fish and Wildlife Service scientists who had been working on recommendations to save the imperiled species.

The amended Biological Opinion produced by the Fish and Wildlife Service in close consultation with the Army Corps was released in December.

It called for strict measures to protect the pallid sturgeon but 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.

The plan, released Friday, calls for the construction of some 1,200 acres of habitat for the pallid sturgeon along the Missouri River - a move that could remove the Army Corps' obligation to lower water flows that scientists insist are critical to the survival of the three endangered species.

Conservationists say the Army Corps is using the questionable Biological Opinion to perpetuate the status quo.

Managing the Missouri River for its range of multiple uses has never been easy. (Photo courtesy Sierra Club)

Hayes said he will ask the judge to order the agency to provide more natural spring and summer flows essential to the river's ecological health, its fish and wildlife, and recreational use in accordance with the 2000 Biological Opinion.

"The Army Corps has a legal obligation to prevent endangered species from going extinct and a moral responsibility to manage the Missouri River for the benefit of the public at large," according to Chad Smith, director of American Rivers' Nebraska Field Office. "The Corps [has] dashed our last lingering hopes that they will show leadership without an explicit court order."

The new plan also contains measures to placate upstream states worried about recurring drought, including a 30 day reduction in the navigation season and new minimum service flows.

But those measures fall far short, according to North Dakota Governor John Hoeven, who said continued litigation is likely.

"Four years into a drought, the Corps is putting forward new rules that include some drought conservation but not enough," said Hoeven. "We intend to continue to pursue every means available for increasing drought conservation, and for raising and stabilizing lake levels in the upper basin."

Adding to the conflict is the view by some downstream interests, however, that the plan keeps too much water in the upper basin at the expense of farmers and the barge industry.

The Campaign to Save the Missouri River, a probusiness coalition of interests from downstream states, says it might challenge the Army Corps' plan in court because it is inconsistent with a previous court ruling that deemed flood control and navigation the dominant functions on the river.

Conservationists say the plan does not take into account the "virtual disappearance of barge traffic" and puts navigation above the ecological health and other economic uses of the river.

Barge traffic on the Missouri River was in sharp decline long before any river species were protected under the Endangered Species Act, and in January, two of the last barge companies operating on the river announced they would take no orders to ship grain or fertilizer along the river in 2004.

"The only thing sillier than squandering millions of dollars of economic potential and damaging the environment to float a few barges is doing those things to float no barges at all," said Tim Searchinger, an attorney for Environmental Defense.

According to the Corps and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Missouri River barges produce only $6.9 million in annual economic benefits for the region.

The Corps' position is also at odds with a 2002 report on the Missouri River ecosystem by the National Academy of Science. That report found that "degradation of the Missouri River ecosystem will continue unless the river's natural water flow is significantly restored."

The piping plover needs low river flow and adequate sand bars for summer nesting. (Photo courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

A final record of decision is expected from the Army Corps within two weeks.