Opposition misrepresents facts about floodway plan

By Lynn N. Bock

I was disappointed to see that the environmental elitists have a new ally in Rob Henderson of Scott City. Like his brethren in Washington, D.C., he chooses to play fast and loose with the truth, I suppose to try to convince the general public that they are really the good guys and here to help us poor, misguided souls in the Bootheel.

He pulled his response to U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson's op-ed piece on the St. John's Bayou-New Madrid Floodway Project straight from the Environmental Defense play book, which notoriously misrepresents the facts about the project.

The most glaring and oft-cited misrepresentation that Mr. Henderson tosses out is "this single project would drain more acres of wetlands than all the wetlands drained by the country's developers in a single year, yet it would not reduce the frequency of flooding in the towns it was intended to benefit."

First, this is a flood-control project. There are no designs or plans to drain a single acre of land.

Second, it will reduce the frequency of flooding in Pinhook, Mo., and it will allow the city of East Prairie, Mo., to improve its drainage system and reduce flooding frequency. Without the project East Prairie cannot improve its storm-water drainage system because there is no outlet during high-water levels in St. John's Ditch and St. James Ditch.

Mr. Henderson also has a tendency to speak out of both sides of his mouth. On the one hand he states with certainty: "If the corps had done its job professionally, the gap in the levee would have been closed by now. It has had the authority to do so since 1954." But then states with equal certainty: "The affected areas are some of the best farmland in the world. The sole reason for this is that they do get periodic flooding, which enriches the soil better than any petroleum-based fertilizer can." He criticizes the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for not getting the project built and then turns around and says it shouldn't be built. It would be amusing if it did not affect so many people and their livelihood.

It appears from the entire tone of the response that Mr. Henderson would prefer to see Southeast Missouri "restored" to its original state as a malaria-ridden, mosquito-infested swamp and we all go back to Europe. I really don't think he appreciates the Little River Drainage District project and that exploiting that "critical wetland" allows about 3,500 descendants and their families of those nasty "European settlers" to build homes, raise families and make a decent living. And that is just the landowners in the Little River project area and does not include the highways, railroads and other towns and commerce that have developed as a result of displacing that "diversity of wildlife" in favor of building a viable economy in Southeast Missouri.

I dare say Mr. Henderson's own community of Scott City would not be the same unless the "system has been so mucked with that historical conditions can never be restored," whatever that is supposed to mean.

As for the rudimentary analysis of Judge James Robertson's opinion and the attempt to chastise Representative Emerson, Mr. Henderson needs to disclose to his audience just a bit more. Judge Robertson found that the corps acted arbitrarily and capriciously in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act. This was based on his analysis of the fish mitigation in which he relied heavily on the paid expert witness of Environmental Defense.

At one point Judge Robertson criticizes the corps for not completely and thoroughly analyzing if a fish will swim through box culverts and, because it did not do such a study, the corps violated the Clean Water Act. I happen to know that Environmental Defense's expert argued that a fish would think the culvert was the mouth of a bigger fish and would not swim through it. According to Judge Robertson it was up to the corps to find out. This is just unbelievable. I hope this analysis will not survive appellate scrutiny, because it sure does not withstand good old Bootheel common sense.

If we are all to go back to Europe, Mr. Henderson can purchase the first one-way ticket.

Lynn N. Bock of New Madrid, Mo., is the attorney for the St. John's Levee and Drainage District.