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May flooding renews ‘spring rise' debate, for some
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By Bob Watson
bwatson@newstribune.com
Was this spring a test?
For the first time in nearly a dozen years, Missourians (and some of our neighbors in Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska) had to deal with high water along the Missouri River and its tributaries.
And some who have opposed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' “spring rise” plan have said this month's flooding could have caused even more damage - if there had been a water release from upstream dams just before the flooding began.
The debate centers around the Corps' new river management protocols - encouraged by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - to protect the pallid sturgeon, an endangered fish.
Under the protocols, the Corps may release water from the upstream reservoir system to mimic the Missouri River's “natural” flow and provide more spring-time water for the fish to reproduce.
“The levee at Jefferson City was within about one foot of being overtopped,” said Democrat Claire McCaskill, Missouri's new U.S. senator. “If circumstances had warranted a spring rise, it could have been the increment that would cause the river to overtop the levees and the flooding that did occur could have been much worse.”
Flood stage at Jefferson City is 23 feet, but levees in the area protect land to about 30 feet. At one point, the river was predicted to hit 34 feet - but, ultimately, barely broke 29 feet.
It's not a partisan issue among Missouri's political leaders.
Republican Christopher “Kit” Bond, Missouri's senior U.S. senator, was quick to tell reporters at a May 11 Jefferson City news conference that, if the spring rise on the river had been allowed this year, Missourians would have seen “a 1,000-year flood,” not a 500-year one.
Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon, a Democrat, added: “The plans of the Corps for a spring rise fail to recognize that the Missouri River cannot be micro-managed.”
But, Charlie Scott, a Columbia-based Fish and Wildlife Service field supervisor for Missouri Ecological Services, countered: “This really is a non-issue - more unfounded statements and rhetoric intended to incite and scare the public and further set back important actions to restore the ecosystem and health of the Missouri River.”
The spring rise releases are planned for March and May - but only when there's at least 40 million acre feet of water stored behind the dams.
This year, so little water was available that no spring rise occurred - so there was no extra water in the Missouri River system when the flooding came.
And, Missouri Natural Resources Department Director Doyle Childers noted: “The spring rise criteria includes downstream constraints for flooding. A spring rise will not be conducted if the Missouri River's flow is forecasted to be above a certain flow level” as determined at Kansas City, Nebraska City and Omaha.
Childers said the river levels were high enough this year that “little if any spring rise would have been possible, due to already high flows at Kansas City and the other (two) locations.”
Chad Smith, an Omaha-based spokesman for the American Rivers group, also pointed to the protocol changes made after Missouri River stakeholders were consulted in 2005.
“If the small March rise had occurred, it would have been completely abated by the time the heavy precipitation fell in the lower basin,” Smith said. “And, based on the Corps' protocol, the May rise would have either been stopped completely before the heavy rains fell (based on forecasting that the Corps incorporates into its river management) or would have been quickly stopped in the event of heavy rain.
“The very small amount of extra water from the May rise would have likely led to no additional flooding problems over and above that caused by heavy rainfall - it would essentially have been a drop in the bucket.”
But, while Childers agreed the rules made a more serious flood unlikely this year, he said: “We have several ongoing concerns about the spring rise. Water released from Gavins Point Dam takes approximately 10 days to reach the (Mississippi River) near St. Louis.
“Even if Omaha, Nebraska City and Kansas City were not predicted to be above the flow constraints, a sudden precipitous rise could cause additional flood damages.”
That's what some thought was happening this year, even without a spring rise release.
In early May, the National Weather Service said there wasn't going to be enough rain to make major flooding an issue - even with spring storms expected to move through the nation's mid-section quickly.
But the storm system - the same one that generated killer tornados in the Great Plains - stalled over the Missouri River Basin, leaving forecasters wondering if flood levels would rival those of the record-setting Floods of 1993.
Then the rains abated, some upstream levees broke under the flood pressures - and the lower Missouri River received a much smaller flood than had been predicted.
But it still was a flood, with water covering more than 1,400 acres of prime farmland and damaging a number of homes.
“I think people like myself who are opposed to a man-made flood on the Missouri River have now got a great argument that, if indeed the (spring rise) had gone forward this year, it would have had an even more devastating impact on Missouri communities,” Gov. Matt Blunt told reporters May 12.
Attorney General Nixon added: “Missouri would pay a price because there is no way to be scientific in predicting if - and how severely - the spring rise, when coupled with rain, would affect us.”
As noted, the “rise” is intended to improve the pallid sturgeon's survival.
Bond complained: “We don't know whether spring rises really do act as Viagra for pallid sturgeon. ...
“It's far better to let nature experiment with it than to have the Fish and Wildlife Service putting human lives and property in danger on an untested experiment.”
But American Rivers' Chad Smith said: “The existing protocols need to be given a chance to work. ... The rise is mandated by the final biological opinion and has been upheld in federal court.
“We need to try that plan soon in a coming year to see how fish and wildlife respond, and to see what we can learn.”
And Charlie Scott of the Fish and Wildlife Service said: “The real story about the Missouri River flooding of 2007 is how the river habitat restoration efforts on public wildlife lands along the river - such as levee setbacks, chute restoration, bank notches and re-connecting the river with its floodplain - may have contributed to reducing the flood peak, increased flood storage and protected levees. ...
“For me this was what we're aiming for on the river - restoration of the fish and wildlife habitats while providing economic and social benefits to communities and individuals.
“That is the real story behind the restoration efforts on the river.”
For the first time in nearly a dozen years, Missourians (and some of our neighbors in Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska) had to deal with high water along the Missouri River and its tributaries.
And some who have opposed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' “spring rise” plan have said this month's flooding could have caused even more damage - if there had been a water release from upstream dams just before the flooding began.
The debate centers around the Corps' new river management protocols - encouraged by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - to protect the pallid sturgeon, an endangered fish.
Under the protocols, the Corps may release water from the upstream reservoir system to mimic the Missouri River's “natural” flow and provide more spring-time water for the fish to reproduce.
“The levee at Jefferson City was within about one foot of being overtopped,” said Democrat Claire McCaskill, Missouri's new U.S. senator. “If circumstances had warranted a spring rise, it could have been the increment that would cause the river to overtop the levees and the flooding that did occur could have been much worse.”
Flood stage at Jefferson City is 23 feet, but levees in the area protect land to about 30 feet. At one point, the river was predicted to hit 34 feet - but, ultimately, barely broke 29 feet.
It's not a partisan issue among Missouri's political leaders.
Republican Christopher “Kit” Bond, Missouri's senior U.S. senator, was quick to tell reporters at a May 11 Jefferson City news conference that, if the spring rise on the river had been allowed this year, Missourians would have seen “a 1,000-year flood,” not a 500-year one.
Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon, a Democrat, added: “The plans of the Corps for a spring rise fail to recognize that the Missouri River cannot be micro-managed.”
But, Charlie Scott, a Columbia-based Fish and Wildlife Service field supervisor for Missouri Ecological Services, countered: “This really is a non-issue - more unfounded statements and rhetoric intended to incite and scare the public and further set back important actions to restore the ecosystem and health of the Missouri River.”
The spring rise releases are planned for March and May - but only when there's at least 40 million acre feet of water stored behind the dams.
This year, so little water was available that no spring rise occurred - so there was no extra water in the Missouri River system when the flooding came.
And, Missouri Natural Resources Department Director Doyle Childers noted: “The spring rise criteria includes downstream constraints for flooding. A spring rise will not be conducted if the Missouri River's flow is forecasted to be above a certain flow level” as determined at Kansas City, Nebraska City and Omaha.
Childers said the river levels were high enough this year that “little if any spring rise would have been possible, due to already high flows at Kansas City and the other (two) locations.”
Chad Smith, an Omaha-based spokesman for the American Rivers group, also pointed to the protocol changes made after Missouri River stakeholders were consulted in 2005.
“If the small March rise had occurred, it would have been completely abated by the time the heavy precipitation fell in the lower basin,” Smith said. “And, based on the Corps' protocol, the May rise would have either been stopped completely before the heavy rains fell (based on forecasting that the Corps incorporates into its river management) or would have been quickly stopped in the event of heavy rain.
“The very small amount of extra water from the May rise would have likely led to no additional flooding problems over and above that caused by heavy rainfall - it would essentially have been a drop in the bucket.”
But, while Childers agreed the rules made a more serious flood unlikely this year, he said: “We have several ongoing concerns about the spring rise. Water released from Gavins Point Dam takes approximately 10 days to reach the (Mississippi River) near St. Louis.
“Even if Omaha, Nebraska City and Kansas City were not predicted to be above the flow constraints, a sudden precipitous rise could cause additional flood damages.”
That's what some thought was happening this year, even without a spring rise release.
In early May, the National Weather Service said there wasn't going to be enough rain to make major flooding an issue - even with spring storms expected to move through the nation's mid-section quickly.
But the storm system - the same one that generated killer tornados in the Great Plains - stalled over the Missouri River Basin, leaving forecasters wondering if flood levels would rival those of the record-setting Floods of 1993.
Then the rains abated, some upstream levees broke under the flood pressures - and the lower Missouri River received a much smaller flood than had been predicted.
But it still was a flood, with water covering more than 1,400 acres of prime farmland and damaging a number of homes.
“I think people like myself who are opposed to a man-made flood on the Missouri River have now got a great argument that, if indeed the (spring rise) had gone forward this year, it would have had an even more devastating impact on Missouri communities,” Gov. Matt Blunt told reporters May 12.
Attorney General Nixon added: “Missouri would pay a price because there is no way to be scientific in predicting if - and how severely - the spring rise, when coupled with rain, would affect us.”
As noted, the “rise” is intended to improve the pallid sturgeon's survival.
Bond complained: “We don't know whether spring rises really do act as Viagra for pallid sturgeon. ...
“It's far better to let nature experiment with it than to have the Fish and Wildlife Service putting human lives and property in danger on an untested experiment.”
But American Rivers' Chad Smith said: “The existing protocols need to be given a chance to work. ... The rise is mandated by the final biological opinion and has been upheld in federal court.
“We need to try that plan soon in a coming year to see how fish and wildlife respond, and to see what we can learn.”
And Charlie Scott of the Fish and Wildlife Service said: “The real story about the Missouri River flooding of 2007 is how the river habitat restoration efforts on public wildlife lands along the river - such as levee setbacks, chute restoration, bank notches and re-connecting the river with its floodplain - may have contributed to reducing the flood peak, increased flood storage and protected levees. ...
“For me this was what we're aiming for on the river - restoration of the fish and wildlife habitats while providing economic and social benefits to communities and individuals.
“That is the real story behind the restoration efforts on the river.”
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