Groups square off over Missouri River levels

ST. LOUIS -- Where the Missouri and Mississippi rivers meet, political and business leaders Wednesday warned that court-ordered lowerings of the Missouri could squeeze vital shipping and electricity production on both waterways, ultimately pinching consumers' pocketbooks.

"Long-term, we are in a water resource fight," Roger Walker, a lawyer representing the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association, said during a sweltering news conference along the Mississippi, in the Gateway Arch's shadow.

"It's a battle we did not choose," he said, "but it's a battle we cannot afford to lose."

Countering that such claims were alarmist, conservationists pushing for the lower levels made no concessions in the festering legal flap over whether the Endangered Species Act takes priority over shipping, flood control and other uses of the Missouri, which empties into the Mississippi at St. Louis.

"The world did not end last summer during the low-flow period, and it hasn't ended this summer, either," said Chad Smith of American Rivers, a national nonprofit conservation group. "Wild claims about power interruptions, water shortages and an increase in the price of canned vegetables have all proved to be so much rhetoric."

Conservation groups want the river to ebb and flow more naturally to encourage spawning and nesting to protect the least tern, piping plover and pallid sturgeon -- fish and shorebirds on the government's list of threatened and endangered species. They say the Army Corps of Engineers is violating the Endangered Species Act by blocking the flow changes.

Barge and farming interests say the corps has a legal obligation to provide enough water for barges, considered efficient transportation. One 15-barge tow carries the equivalent of 870 trucks, meaning "the increased congestion and air pollution stemming from the loss of river transportation would be immense," Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon told reporters.

"Water for Missouri is like blood for our bodies; the flow of the Missouri River helps keep our economy alive," Nixon said.

Nixon's worry: that some proposals to lower the Missouri could leave the river's flows lower than ever with increasing frequency, costing tens of millions of dollars in lost power generation, crimping the Missouri's status as a reliable supply of drinking water and eating into farmers' profits by forcing them to ship via pricier rail or truck.

In compliance with a federal judge's order, the corps for three days beginning Aug. 12 slowed Missouri River releases from 26,000 cubic feet per second, or cfs, to 21,000 cfs. That lower level was expected to be seen Thursday in St. Louis, said Don Huffman of MEMCO Barge Line in suburban St. Louis.

The Missouri's current restrictions, he said, have been costing the barge industry $500,000 a day.

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler in Washington had ordered a monthlong pullback -- from mid-July to mid-August -- to protect endangered and threatened bird and fish species. On Wednesday, Nixon suggested that some environmental worries over the least terns and piping plovers were an overblown "Chicken Little argument that the sky is falling."

The corps last Friday began increasing releases and expects to be back at minimum navigation levels -- about 25,000 cfs -- by Sept. 1.

The corps initially refused to follow Kessler's order because the agency said it was under conflicting orders from a Nebraska federal judge to provide enough water for shipping.

Missouri River litigation was recently reassigned to U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson in Minnesota. Earlier this month, he ruled there was no conflict and that the order to drastically cut releases remained in effect. He has scheduled a status conference for Sept. 8.

A new operational plan for the Missouri was due last year but was postponed by the Bush administration. The corps is proposing a plan that does not alter the Missouri's flow and instead develops new habitat for the least tern, piping plover and pallid sturgeon.

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On the Net:

Army Corps of Engineers Missouri River Region: http://www.nwd.usace.army.mil

American Rivers: http://www.americanrivers.org

U.S. court system: http://www.uscourts.gov