Talent criticizes Sierra Club for hindering flood control

U.S. Senate candidate Jim Talent blasted the Sierra Club on Thursday for opposing an $80 million flood control project that he said would stop flooding in the St. John's Bayou area in Scott, Mississippi and New Madrid counties.

The project would close a 1,500-foot gap in the levee system at New Madrid, Mo., that allows the Mississippi River to flood thousands of acres of farmland.

Talent said the Sierra Club's opposition has held up the Army Corps of Engineers project. Environmental groups are concerned that the proposed project would destroy wildlife habitat and wetlands and threaten Big Oak Tree State Park in Mississippi County.

But Talent said the project is essential to preventing damaging floods in the area, including the small town of East Prairie, Mo. The town has a population of just over 3,200.

Challenges incumbent

Talent, a Republican and former congressman, urged his Democratic opponent and incumbent, Jean Carnahan, to help move the project forward.

The Carnahan campaign responded later in the day, saying that the senator does back the project. "While Jim Talent has been grandstanding about flood control, Sen. Carnahan has been doing something about it," said Dan Leistikow, Carnahan campaign spokesman.

Leistikow said Carnahan has requested initial funding for the flood control work.

Talent voiced his support for the St. John's Bayou-New Madrid floodway project during a brief visit to Cape Girardeau. He met briefly with about a dozen Cape Girardeau, Scott and Mississippi County officials, state lawmakers and representatives of the Little River Drainage District and the Southeast Missouri Regional Port Authority.

Talent spoke atop the drainage district's Diversion Channel earthen levee north of Nash Road to demonstrate his support for levee projects throughout Southeast Missouri.

"The very levee we are standing on protects over 1 million acres of land and thousands of people," he said in a written statement handed out at the campaign stop. If the Sierra Club had its way, this levee would not exist, he said in the statement.

Talent said farmers, ranchers and agribusiness people are the best stewards of the land. He challenged Carnahan to encourage her supporters at the Sierra Club "to stop playing politics with flood control in Southeast Missouri."

"Everybody over the years who has represented this area in Congress has wanted this project," he told supporters standing on the Diversion Channel levee.

Leistikow said his boss has supported every Corps of Engineers flood control and navigation project in Southeast Missouri.

"Sen. Carnahan has a strong record on environmental issues, but that doesn't mean that she agrees with the Sierra Club and any other group all the time," he said.

Officials at the Sierra Club in Missouri couldn't be reached for comment Thursday afternoon.

Protection a 'necessity'

In his written statement, Talent voiced strong support for flood control projects in general. "Whether you are in Perry County and need flood protection to protect existing business and Highway 51 or in the minority community of Pinhook in Mississippi County, flood protection is a necessity in Southeast Missouri, not a luxury," Talent wrote.

During the campaign stop, Talent said he had been endorsed by the Missouri Farm Bureau while Carnahan was endorsed by the Sierra Club. The environmental group has spent more than $100,000 in advertising on behalf of Carnahan, Talent said.

Talent cut short his comments as rain started falling on the windswept, gravel levee road. "I don't want anyone to think I don't have enough sense to come in out of the rain," he said as he and his supporters headed for their cars.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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