Corps: Wait for weekend to decide on levee break

SIKESTON, Mo. (AP) -- An Army Corps of Engineers spokesman said Wednesday the agency will wait until this weekend to decide whether it is necessary to punch a massive hole in a levee to protect an upstream Illinois town from the rising Mississippi River.

The corps has said it may have to blow holes, perhaps using explosives, in the Birds Point levee to ease rising waters near the Illinois town of Cairo (KAY'-roh), which sits near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.

Missouri has filed a federal lawsuit to block the effort because it would swamp farmland. A hearing is scheduled for Thursday.

But corps spokesman Bob Anderson told The Associated Press that even if a judge gives the go-ahead, the agency will wait until it gets a better forecast of the river crests to see if the breach is necessary. That decision isn't likely to come until at least this weekend.

Missouri government leaders argue the levee's destruction would flood up to 130,000 acres of land - an area stretching 30 miles north to south and as much as eight to 10 miles wide at certain points.

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster says floodwaters would leave a layer of silt on farmland that could take a generation to clear and also could damage 100 homes.

Cairo's mayor, Judson Childs, endorses the plan for the intentional levee breach, saying it puts people's lives ahead of farmland.

Another corps spokesman, Jim Pogue, said Tuesday that the agency would monitor river levels in the area and intentionally break the levee if it became convinced the rising water would overtop the levee for a significant amount of time or break it. Much of the decision to breach the levee with explosives, he said, hinges on whether the levee is apparently going to break on its own.

Equipment was being sent to the levee on barges accompanied by a towboat, but corps officials have refused to be specific about that equipment except to say there would be explosives.

If a decision is made to breach the levee, Pogue said, the tiny town of Pinhook, with a population of about 50 people, will have to be evacuated.