Thank you Jim!  Phyllis
SIOUX CITY - The Missouri River barge channel is not a disaster waiting
to happen. It's the disaster that happened in 2011. By designing a narrow
channel with limited capacity and limited access to the floodplain, the
engineers of the 1960s and '70s left Iowa and other states vulnerable to
high flows.
Even upstream of Ponca, Neb., the high flows did not mean widespread
suffering as we saw in our segment of the river. The river channel in the
59-mile stretch of the Missouri National Recreational River was able to
absorb flows of 160,000 cubic  feet per second because the channel was
naturally wider and the water found its floodplain. Disruption was
minimal.
The wing dikes, revetments and other controlling structures of the barge
channel were not designed for a wide enough river channel and connection
to the floodplain. Surprising isn't it that the segment just downstream
of Gavins Point Dam could handle the high flows and the segments south of
Ponca and Sioux City spread out once the barge channel hit capacity?
The Missouri River barge channel has not just proven it is an economic
failure; 2011 proved it an engineering failure as well. Citizens and
economic developers are not going to be satisfied with an independent
review of the Army Corps management of the river. A new master plan for
the river has to respond to the weaknesses in the system created back in
the 1940s. Is any business going to ignore the flood's lessons and build
along the river without a thorough revamping of the longest river in
America?
Basin governors and congressional delegations have the responsibility for
demanding a complete analysis of the 2011 flood, not an absolution from a
small panel of experts. - Jim Redmond

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