Originally aired January 4, 2002

For years the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has managed the flow of the Missouri River. Six dams in Montana, the Dakotas and Nebraska hold water and release it according to Corps of Engineers plans.

The stretch of river on Nebraska’s eastern border is managed to provide flood control and a deep enough channel for commercial navigation. But those goals may change. The Corps of Engineers is nearing the end of a process that’s taken several years. They’re considering several changes, but the most significant for Nebraskans deals with stretch of river downstream from Gavins Point Dam. Currently, they try to keep the flow of the river steady, at a level high enough to allow tug boats to pull barges during the spring through the fall. They may release more water in the spring. That means a higher river level. In the summer, the river would recede to low levels as less water is released from the dam. As “Statewide’s” Brad Penner reports, it’s a significant change that has a lot of folks taking sides in a battle over the river.

Reported by Statewide correspondent, Brad Penner.

Begin with a couple of questions. Is a river, the Missouri River specifically, a resource to be managed for the economic benefit of man? Or is it, literally, for the birds? And fish, too. Should the river be managed for the benefit of endangered species like the piping plover, least tern and pallid sturgeon? Farmer Rich Andrew says no.
[Rich Andrew]Their point is unfounded. It's not justified. We have… you know, the farmers and agricultural interest in here, we have an investment in this area and they're wanting to take that investment and our property rights away from us.
Andrew farms near Brownville. He says an intentional spring rise in the river could hurt his farm.
[Andrew]You see that bank there with the rock. It would be at least probably three… three feet from the crest of that… from the top of it down. Three to four feet.
A higher river could put up to eighteen hundred of his acres in jeopardy. The water table under Andrew's fields would rise. It could make it difficult for him to plant.
Normally, excess water flows from this drainage ditch into the Little Nemaha River before flowing into the nearby Missouri. If the Missouri runs higher, it will be harder to keep the fields dry.
[Andrew]But when the river comes up we have to shut these gates and then… there's no way of getting the water out. Unless we use… we could use this pump and pump it across. There's this pipe and it dumps it on the riverside of the gates.
But what's bad for Rich Andrew could be good for endangered species. That's why some environmental groups and government agencies want to change the way the Missouri River flows. The Army Corps of Engineers could decide to increase flow in the spring and fall and cut back in the summer. Or they could continue to manage the river the way they do now.
[Col. Kurt Ubbelohde]We view this as a very important opportunity for you to have an influence on our decision.
The two sides squared off at a public hearing in Nebraska City.
[Mike Olson]The Missouri River is home to the endangered pallid sturgeon and least tern and the threatened piping plover. The decline of these species tells us that the river is not healthy for its native fish and wildlife and that there needs to be a change in its management to restore the Missouri to a more naturally functioning river system.
If the Corps decides to release more water from Gavins Point Dam in the spring, it could create more sandbars. Low releases in the summer would keep the sandbars dry. Just the kind of environment that piping plovers and least terns love. High spring flows might also increase the number of pallid sturgeon in the river
[Olson]These fish take a trigger from the environment. When is the right time to spawn each spring? And because we've flattened out those flows below the dams they don't get that appropriate trigger and so what we're trying to do is replace that spawning cue and get these fish to behave the way they used to behave when they were able to reproduce.
No one can predict exactly how a change in the Missouri River's flow will affect endangered species.
[Olson]There is no study that says, if you run a particular flow out of Gavins Point Dam you will receive a thousand pallid sturgeon spawn or there will be five hundred birds reproduced. Those are the types of data and the types of results that we'll receive once we start this. But there is no one study that says how this will work. There are hundreds and hundreds of studies that show this is the right direction to restore this river.
[Bill Beacom]Well, I started out on the Missouri when I was a boy. I'm a second-generation towboater… navigation.
Bill Beacom says river barges would become extinct on the Missouri if river levels fall in the summer.
[Beacom]If they change the releases from Gavins Point to anything with a summer drawdown it means the… doing away with navigation on the river.
[Paul Johnston]There would be opportunities for navigation from the opening of the navigation season in April until we started to draw the water down. It would start to draw down in late June and be down at the lower levels about the first of July and stay that way until the first part of September and then come back up. So there would be opportunities for navigation in the spring and in the fall.
Beacom says that's not enough to keep the barges in business.
[Beacom]We only have an eight-month season, so roughly a third of our income would be taken away. And I don't think any business or individual could stand to lose a third of their paycheck or a third of their incomes.
Farmers would also be hurt if the navigation business sinks. Barges haul grain to markets down river. The competition with railroads reduces shipping costs. Lower costs means more income for farmers.
Low river levels could also leave recreational boaters high and dry.
[Johnston]Recreation on the lower river, especially from Sioux City to Omaha, could take a pretty good hit too. At the lowest levels the marinas and the public boat ramps… there could be some real access problems to the river. And there are sixteen hundred boat slips from Bellevue to Sioux City.
But Chad Smith says it's his turn to enjoy the river his way.
[Chad Smith]It is clear that over the past fifty or more years the interest and concerns of people like me have received little to no attention in how the Missouri River is managed.
Smith testified as a private citizen and native Nebraskan. But he also works for an organization called 'American Rivers'.
[Smith]Every year we come out with a list of endangered rivers and the Missouri River was number one on our list this year. And the reason that was and what we're focusing on now was this issue of flow. The Missouri River has lost its heartbeat. We've flatlined the flow of the Missouri to accommodate barges and accommodate other uses of the river. And in the process we've forgot about things like fish and wildlife and recreation.
Smith says it's important to help endangered species survive, but other native fish and wildlife are just as important.
[Smith]We're talking about change that's going to be good for them, its going to be good for all native species on the river. And its going to be good for people too because its… these are the kinds of changes that will draw people back to the Missouri. Get them out there on their canoe, in their duck blinds, on their john-boats and enjoying the Missouri in ways that they should be able to do.
The Missouri River is a resource. It's up to the Corps of Engineers to decide how to use that resource.
[Johnston]The Corps is a juggler. There are eight authorized purposes for the dams and reservoirs and so those are eight balls we're trying to keep in the air. And then with the passage of the Endangered Species Act we added a ninth ball, and our job them is to try to keep those nine balls in the air with balance.
The public has until the end of February to comment on the alternatives for managing the Missouri. Chad Smith expects a new management plan.
[Smith]So we do feel like after twelve long years, after a lot of public meetings, after a lot of money being spent that we're at the stage where some changes are going to happen on the Missouri.
Rich Andrew likes things just the way they are. He's afraid a change to help wildlife will only hurt farmers with land along the river.
[Andrew]I hope it doesn't happen. I hope they'll see that there's an element here that's trying to make a living down here and… and I hope the common sense prevails is what I hope.
But if Andrew and other farmers get their wish, you can expect the issue to wind up in court.
[Olson]What we've actually tried to do over the last twelve years is come up with an implementable approach but in all likelihood I think that this issue will be resolved in courts and its going to be a year or two down the road. But some judge is probably going to have the final say on this.
The Corps of Engineers will release their decision on the Missouri River Plan in May. Reporting for STATEWIDE, I'm Brad Penner.