Missouri River Has a Day in Court

ST. PAUL, Minnesota, May 24, 2004 (ENS) - More than 24 lawyers turned up at the federal courthouse in St. Paul on Friday to argue the merits of keeping the Missouri River at a steady depth or allowing a spring rise and a summer drop in water levels.

U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson heard oral arguments from lawyer Robert Vincze, representing Kentucky barge company Blaske Marine who said commercial barges need a steady water flows of 28,500 cubic feet a second to keep traffic moving.

The judge also heard from William Bryan of the Missouri attorney general's office who cited the Flood Control Act of 1944 which he said requires that navigation be a priority for river management.

But American Rivers' attorney Brian O'Neill argued that the Flood Control Act does not requires a balancing of interests - navigation and conservation.

Instead of creating a more seasonal ebb and flow to sustain the endangered piping plover, least tern and pallid sturgeon, as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service requires, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to build 1,200 acres of slow, shallow water habitat. Some 600 acres have been constructed.

The Corps says the new habitat will let it comply with the Endangered Species Act without managing its dams to mimic the normal seasonal rise and fall of the river, that is says would be detrimental to barge navigation.

The federal government has faced many lawsuits over management of the 2,400 hundred mile river which runs through seven states, from Montana to Missouri.

In January 2002, the National Academy of Sciences release the findings of a two year study showing that the Missouri River's "ecological parameters and patterns are currently well understood," that the U.S. Army Corps can change its dam operations "within its current authority," and called for "decisive and immediate management actions" to restore more natural flows and rescue native fish and wildlife.

Critics say the current Master Manual - the Army Corps' operations guidance for its Missouri River dams - puts the interests of the $6.9 million commercial navigation industry ahead of the $85 million outdoor recreation and tourism industry and the general ecological health of the river.