Although no concerns about lack of water have been brought up by Central Missouri drinking water providers who get their water from the Missouri River, other locations are not as lucky.
During a regularly scheduled briefing by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Wednesday, officials said drought conditions in the Missouri River Basin above Sioux City, Iowa, continued throughout the month of August. That means, for the second year in a row, winter releases from Gavins Point Dam in South Dakota will be 12,000 cubic feet per second (cfs), as part of water conservation measures. They have been doing releases of 30,000 cfs.
Corps officials said while the month of July brought some much-needed moisture to the basin, the month of August showed a return to the warm and dry conditions seen during the last two seasons.
"Reservoir inflows in August were much lower than average and we expect below-average inflows into the river system through the rest of 2022," said John Remus, chief of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Missouri River Basin Water Management Division.
According to the National Drought Mitigation Center, drought conditions in the basin have worsened during the past month. Seventy-four percent of the basin is experiencing abnormally dry or drought conditions, with 7 percent of that being extreme or exceptional drought. Northern Montana and southwestern Nebraska show exceptionally dry soil conditions. The September and seasonal drought outlooks show existing drought persisting and expanding in the basin through the end of November.
Gavins Point releases will be set to provide navigation service along the river, and the season will end Nov. 28 at the mouth of the Missouri River in St. Louis.