Army Engineers' Missouri River Plan Draws Conservationist Fire

WASHINGTON, DC, March 22, 2004 (ENS) - The battle over water levels on the Missouri River is again raging. After 14 years of study and contentious debate, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has released its Final Environmental Impact Statement on the operation of the Missouri River dams and reservoirs, the new Master Water Control Manual, and the final 2004 Annual Operating Plan.

The Corps says its plan offers the best balance of multiple uses, but conservationists say the agency still refuses to take endangered species into account as it controls the water flows from its Missouri River dams.

Judge Paul Magnuson of the U.S. District Court for Minnesota ordered the Corps to present him with a final Master Manual by March 19, and the Corps complied with his order.

"We believe the selected plan in the new manual is the best balance for serving the multiple purposes of the reservoir system as authorized by Congress, meets the Corps' trust and treaty obligations to federally recognized tribes, and complies with the environmental laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act," said John Paul Woodley, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works.

"This is one of the most difficult and complex issues facing the Corps of Engineers. It has been compounded by the current drought and the need to protect endangered species," said Woodley.

Most of the backwaters and side channels of the Missouri River have been degraded by the loss of sediment trapped in the upstream reservoirs since Gavins Point Dam closed in 1957. (Photo courtesy USGS)

The Corps pledged to build sandbar habitat for the other two endanagered species on the Missouri, the interior least tern and the piping plover.

The engineers will implement the drought conservation measures, and implement "vigorous research, monitoring and evaluation of recovery efforts."

Barge navigation will be accomodated without a split season, but the navigation season will be shortened by 31 days, from the normal ending on December 1 to November 1.

The Corps will also establish the Missouri River Recovery Implementation Committee (MRRIC) to give citizens input into the ongoing management of the river. The agency said it is committed to ensuring that the public is actively involved and well informed of potential changes in the regulation of the dams and reservoirs, and has the opportunity to comment on those proposed changes prior to implementation.

Over the next two years, the Corps will engage the people of the basin through the MRRIC to shape the Amended 2003 Biological Opinion requirement for a "spring pulse" of water down the river to meet the needs of the species and the people. A new research, monitoring and evaluation program will provide critical information to this review.

Endangered pallid sturgeon (Photo courtesy USACE)

But conservationists are not satisfied with the Corps Master Manual and its other plans. They 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 a Biological Opinion issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2000.

Instead, the Corps is using a more recent Biological Opinion issued by the Service in December 2003 which the conservationists say does not go far enough to provide the correct water levels for endangered species and the river ecosystem as a whole.

The Missouri River Environmental Impact Statement pays lip service to the myriad needs along the Missouri River, but in practice prioritizes commercial navigation ahead of all other uses, says American Rivers, one of the plaintiff groups in the case before Judge Magnuson.

"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.

Barge traffic on the Missouri River was in 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 Missouri announced they would take no orders to ship grain or fertilizer along the river in 2004.

North Dakota Governor John Hoeven says his state still needs more water from the Missouri over and above what the Corps has allotted in its new Master Manual

“General Grisoli informed me today by telephone that the Corps has added some additional drought conservation to the Annual Operating Plan (AOP) to help protect our fisheries," the governor said. "Specifically, the AOP will prioritize stable to rising lake levels for Sakakawea and Oahe during the spring spawning season in April and May.

“Stable to rising lake levels during our smelt spawn is vitally important to our cold water fisheries, Governor Hoeven said. "Our efforts to bring General Grisoli and Assistant Secretary of the Army Woodley to North Dakota have helped get this important change. However, the master manual still does not provide adequate drought management to protect our lakes, and we will continue to do everything we can to get more.”

“The people of South Dakota and the other Upper Basin states recognize that a Band-Aid fix won’t restore the Missouri River,” said Chris Hesla, South Dakota Wildlife Federation executive director. “The agency must establish healthy flows on every part of the river it manages.”

Woodley said the Corps is looking at the big picture, including flood control and power generation. The dams it controls protect 1.4 million acres of farmland and 40,000 residential and non-residential buildings along the river from Montana to the Mississippi River, a benefit worth more than $410 million annually. The dams also provide average annual hydropower benefits in the range of $670 million.

The Corps says its new Master Manual complies with the Endangered Species Act. The Corps and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have been working together to address the immediate requirements of the pallid sturgeon, shaping "a credible plan" to develop 1,200 acres of shallow water habitat by July 1, Woodley said.

John Paul Woodley, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, was previously Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources. (Photo courtesy state of Virginia)

“The Corps’ piecemeal approach to river management won’t work,” said Tom France, counsel for the National Wildlife Federation. “The Corps must look at the entire Missouri River system and restore natural flows throughout its length.”

The long term goal is to implement a comprehensive set of measures over 20 to 30 years to help recover the protected species and the ecosystem they depend on, said Grisoli.

"I'm excited about the opportunities now available to the basin. The President's budget request for 2005 includes $69 million for improvements along the entire Missouri River, which bodes very well for both the residents and listed species," he said.

"The people of the basin must work together as a team - federal, state, and local agencies as well as the diverse stakeholders - and remain committed to preserving the Missouri River as a national treasure," said Grisoli, "allowing everyone to enjoy its beauty and many resources."

Sunset over Lake Sakakawea in North Dakota (Photo courtesy North Dakota Tourism Department)

"We've documented a host of horror stories of Corps' projects that waste tax dollars and harm wildlife and the environment," says David Conrad, NWF's senior water resources specialist. "It's a hit parade of the worst of the worst - with the nation's treasury and natural resources taking the hit."

"Despite exploding deficits, Congress continues to spend like drunken sailors on gold plated pork barrel water projects," says Steve Ellis, vice president of programs at Taxpayers for Common Sense. "The problem is that the Corps of Engineers is aiding and abetting this spending spree because they have never met a boondoggle they didn't like."

The investigative report "Crossroads: Congress, the Corps of Engineers and the Future of America's Water Resources," shows that the Corps consistently "cooks the books" with bad economics, lowballs the environmental damage its projects will cause, relies on outdated approaches, lacks direction in its work, and perpetuates wasteful federal subsidies.

In the near future, the U.S. Senate is expected to consider the 2004 Water Resources Development Act, legislation that could authorize as much as $8 billion worth of new Corps projects. The upcoming debate on the legislation presents an opportunity for enacting new policies to change the way the agency does business, the groups say.

"Congress needs to change the rules of the game for the Corps by cutting bad water projects and permanently redirecting the agency to use tax dollars wisely to restore America's waterways," Conrad said.

Among the most threatening and wasteful Corps projects in the country, the groups allege, is a $319 million irrigation demonstration project in Eastern Arkansas. They warn that this project sets the stage for more of the same that would cost taxpayers more than $1 billion in total and cause extraordinary damage to two national wildlife refuges and habitat for the largest concentration of wintering mallard ducks in North America.

The groups are also critical of the Corps' plans to construct the world's largest hydraulic pump, the Yazoo Pump, and dredge Mississippi's Big Sunflower River, primarily to prevent seasonal flooding on what the groups call "marginal" farmland. The projects will not protect homes and businesses from flooding, the groups predict, but will destroy valuable Mississippi Delta bottomland hardwood and tens of thousands of acres of wetlands at a combined cost of $243 million.

The Lower Snake River Navigation in Idaho, Oregon and Washington has been a failure, the groups, say. They would like to see four federal dams on the Lower Snake River removed in the interests of salmon recovery. Instead, between 1997 and 2001, federal agencies poured $1.5 billion dollars into failed efforts to save the endangered salmon, including barging and trucking the fish around the dams.

Corps spokespeople were unavailable to comment directly on the groups' allegations.