Flood worries halt spring release on lower Missouri River

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Thursday it heard the concerns of worried Missourians and has eliminated the spring release on the Missouri River below Kansas City.

The corps announced that it began holding back releases from tributary dams in the lower Missouri midday Wednesday. That move effectively negates releases in the lower Missouri River that already were put in motion 13 hours earlier from Gavins Point Dam in Yankton, S.D.

The corps said the move will still provide a pulse of higher water that's needed this time of year to prompt spawning of an endangered fish. But it eliminates the extra flow in flood-weary Missouri.

"We would not have started the March pulse from Gavins Point Dam in South Dakota if we felt there was risk to public health and safety," said Larry Cieslik, chief of the Missouri River Water Management Office in Omaha, Neb. "But we have heard the concerns of people in Missouri loud and clear.

"This option achieves the benefit for the pallid sturgeon in the upper river while completely eliminating the flood risk from the pulse downstream of Kansas City to the confluence with the Mississippi River."

Efforts earlier in the week by the state of Missouri to stop the release failed.

U.S. District Judge Jean Hamilton ruled Tuesday she found no evidence to show the corps was not following the law. And, a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon's appeal of Hamilton's decision.

State officials, from Lt. Governor Peter Kinder, serving as acting governor while Gov. Matt Blunt is out of the country, to Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., and Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., urged the federal government to halt the spring rise. The corps also heard from citizens, spokesman Paul Johnston said.

Kinder on Thursday thanked the corps, adding "Missourians can rest assured that their voices have been heard in this time of great disaster in our state."