Associated PressWednesday,
Missouri River
Basin Association
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Associated Press
Wednesday,
Drought has plunged lake levels to
record lows on the
The Senate Appropriations
Committee last week voted to halt water releases from the reservoirs, which would end
barge shipping immediately, mostly in
The panel essentially reversed
itself Tuesday, as Missouri Sen. Kit Bond inserted a measure that denies funding for the
drought conservation measure into another spending bill.
Without the releases, Bond said in
an interview, farmers would face higher costs and shipping delays, birds and fish would
lose new habitat and communities could lose power.
"This is a disaster all up
and down the river," said Bond, a Republican who champions the grain and shipping
industries. "It would have a huge impact."
Disaster is facing upriver
communities, too, lawmakers from those states argued. Drought threatens to trim fish
populations and otherwise impair the upriver economy that revolves around recreation. Some
communities have also experienced problems with intakes for their drinking water.
"If we're going to have pain
on the
Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., said
marinas can't reach water, farmers can't irrigate and "the impact to recreation and
agriculture has been devastating."
"But that is not the end of
it: It's not the impact on us; it's the impact on the river, and should we have another
really serious dry year, are we going to ruin our reservoirs? We got no more water to
release," Burns said.
Said Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D.,
"This is nothing more than Sen. Bond playing king of the hill."
Because the full Senate must
approve the committee's actions, lawmakers on both sides expect another showdown on the
issue.
The drought conservation provision
was approved last week as part of an Interior Department spending bill, while Bond's
language is part of a bill funding housing and veterans' programs. The practice of trying
to make policy by amending a spending bill frequently draws criticism, and the latest
"It's really no way to run a
river," said
Smith said that continuing to
release water amid severe drought is a temporary solution that carries drastic long-term
consequences.
"You may make some people
feel good now, but everybody's going to feel bad next year, and it will keep getting
worse," Smith said.
Problems on the
Nearly two-thirds of the nation's
grain exports float along the middle
In the Senate, the drought
conservation provisions sought by upriver senators would have forced the Army Corps of
Engineers to halt releases when levels drop below 40 million acre feet. An acre foot is
the amount of water one foot deep covering a flat acre of land.
It's a higher threshold that would
have allowed shipping last year, but not this year and probably not in 2005. Currently,
levels must drop below 31 million acre feet for the corps to commence drought
conservation.
On Tuesday, storage in the big
three reservoirs was 35.9 million acre feet, down from 36.1 million acre feet last week,
said Paul Johnston, an Omaha, Neb., spokesman for the corps.
Associated Press
The battle over who gets more
water erupted after lake levels plummeted to all-time lows at the big reservoirs in
But Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont.,
said it's not enough merely to curtail shipping.
"They've been doing it at the
cost of our water," Burns said. "We feel like that if you're in drought
conditions, that everybody should share the pain, that's what we're saying."
Burns' solution is to stop
releasing water for barges right now, and he added it to an Interior Department spending
bill that cleared the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday evening.
The move angered Sen. Kit Bond, a
Missouri Republican allied with the shipping and grain industries.
"The scope of the disaster,
not just to
Bond and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa,
tried unsuccessfully to kill the provision, but Bond said, "The fat lady hasn't sung
on this one. This battle is just beginning."
The 2,341-mile
Ending navigation would force the
grain to be moved more expensively by truck or by rail, an alternative shippers estimate
to add $8 to $12 per ton.
"Grain is sold based on world
price, so we've got to eat that higher cost of transportation,"
But upriver communities are
hurting now, Burns and his allies argue.
Drought has severely damaged the
upriver recreation industry and the economy that revolves around it, said Chad Smith, a
Nebraska-based spokesman for the conservation group American Rivers. In far northeast
"And when you take that away,
you really stress the local community," Smith said.
Drought also has forced some
communities to go to greater lengths to get drinking water, Smith said. Burns' staff said
he's also worried about having enough water for hydropower and irrigation.
Smith blamed the corps for
worsening the situation by continuing to provide water for what he says is a sagging barge
industry.
"The reservoirs just continue
to drop. I'm not surprised that finally somebody stood up and said, `This can't happen
anymore,'" Smith said.
The provision by Burns would force
the corps to halt reservoir releases when levels at the big three reservoirs drop below 40
million acre feet, rather than below 31 million acre feet under the current master water
control manual for river operations. They are
With the Burns amendment in place,
there would have been shipping last year but not this year, and probably not next year.
Corps spokesman Paul Johnston of
The Senate battle pits two
longtime friends against each other. Burns and Bond have worked on farming issues for
several years as part of an informal Senate "ag posse" and have many other
common interests.
"That's what makes it a
little strange," Bond said.
But Burns did not discuss his plans with
Bond, who learned Monday night what was brewing. Burns said before the committee met to
vote: "I haven't talked to him yet, but I know he'll probably have something to say
about it."