News
Farmers vs. Corps of Engineers
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers held another in its series of eight public meetings on Missouri River flood management Thursday night in Jefferson City, Missouri.
Just before that, the Missouri Corn Growers Association released its video about the impact of the flood on farmers called “Underwater and Overlooked: Crisis on the Missouri River.” Spokeswoman Becky Frankenbach tells Brownfield Missouri farmers want everyone to know what the flooding has done.
“They were very agitated and very upset and wanted an outlet for this message and we thought, ‘How do you influence the Corp?’ Well, the way to influence the Corps is through their funding and the only way to get through Congress is to create an action. And, the only way to get action is to actually let people see what’s happening,” Frankenbach says.
In the aftermath, she says, the hard work is just now beginning.
“These guys are having to dig out of their houses. They’ve been living in campers and in rentals for four months. They’re starting to get a look at land to see what that’s like. So, just because the waters are gone, this fight is far from over. But, now the battle is how to get the levees rebuilt and that’s going to be a big focus moving forward.”
Frankenbach says farmers wish the Corps had started releasing upstream reservoir water sooner to avoid the prolonged disaster.
“We’re saying look at your short term forecast as well as your long term forecast. Be more aware of your reservoir levels. Keep them at a lower capacity so that in the event something like this happens we’re not facing the magnitude and the duration (of flooding) that we had this year,” Frankenbach adds, “So, that was our real message: Let’s work together to find a solution so that we’re not in the same situation next year.”
Corps spokeswoman Monique Farmer says they could not predict the enormous amounts of rain in Montana that exacerbated the extreme snow melt flowing into the river. “There was nothing in our weather forecast that would have given us the indication back in the January/February time frame or even a March/April time frame to give us a red flag to say that we should increase releases,” says Farmer.
Farmer tells Brownfield the “game changer” was the Montana rains. She says the Corps took action to minimize the damage as much as it could. She says the Corps is looking at increasing flood control storage for 2012 among many other concerns that have been raised. An external water management review is underway. Farmer says the Corps is holding these meetings to hear from everyone who has flood concerns and they are getting the message that flood control should be the top priority.
As for levee repairs? Monique Farmer tells Brownfield on Wednesday the Corps awarded two contracts to begin making repairs to levees: L-575, near Hamburg, Iowa and L-550, in Atchison County in Northwest Missouri, that breached this summer. She says the Corps has pulled funds from other projects to make that happen.
The Corps’ next meeting is next Monday night (October 31st) in Glasgow, Montana. The rest of the meetings will be held in North Dakota, South Dakota and Iowa.
AUDIO: Becky Frankenbach (3:00 mp3)
AUDIO: Monique Farmer (11:00 mp3)
Tags: Ag Weather, Corps of Engineers, Farm Income/Prices, Flood, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska
I saw that they are just now opening back up some of the highways between Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri finally. There is still a lot of water standing. We’ve been thinking of the farmers and families affected by this.