Here is the LTE in larger print, (I hope).
Jane Clark

Subject: King amendment analyzed by LTE in Register

To offset Steve King’s amendment to halt the Army Corps from returning
sediment to the Missouri River, we need letters to senators Harkin and
Grassley.  Here is a good letter appearing in todays Register.  My letter to
the editor has not appeared in either SC Journal or the Register.  

Rep. Steve King is off base with his amendment to prohibit the Army Corps of
Engineers from dumping sediment into the Missouri River. The sediment the
Corps is putting in the river is not the same as agricultural runoff and
will have little effect on nutrient reduction strategies Iowa recently
enacted.
Sediment reduction from the upland on-farm soil and soil conservation
practices is really a separate issue from concerns regarding Corps sediment
dumping practices used to create congressionally authorized shallow water
habitat.
Historically, very little sediment from the uplands reached the Missouri
River because the land was protected by native prairie grasses. The Missouri
River was appropriately named the “Big Muddy” mostly because of natural bank
and bed erosion as the river twisted and turned its way to the Mississippi
River. Some of this sediment continued down the Mississippi to the Gulf,
where they helped to create coastal wetlands that protect the Louisiana
coast from tropical storms.
This was until the Corps dammed the Missouri River in the Dakotas and
Montana and channelized the river below Sioux City. The river below Gavins
Point Dam near Yankton, S.D., now carries 80 percent less sediment than
historical loads. Through the congressionally authorized “bank stabilization
and navigation project” completed in the early 1970s, the Corps reduced the
channel length by 120 miles and narrowed the channel width 50 percent to 70
percent. The reduction in channel length and width removed thousands of
acres of shallow water habitat important to fish and wildlife, but it also
had other consequences.
The shorter narrower channel caused significant channel degradation
(approximately 14 feet at Sioux City), exposing infrastructure and loss of
important coastal wetlands along the Louisiana coast. To straighten the
channel, the Corps constructed hundreds of dikes and armored river banks to
trap sediment that was bound for the Mississippi River and eventually the
Gulf of Mexico.
Nutrient testing has shown that this trapped sediment that the Corps is now
dumping into the river to help mitigate some of the lost habitat has much
more natural levels of nutrients than soil eroding from most Iowa farm
fields and is a small fraction of the total yearly sediment carried by the
river.
Independent scientists have verified that sediments and nutrients derived
from the Corps shallow water habitat construction activities has very little
impact (less than 2.5 percent) on the Gulf hypoxia issues.
Rep. King also stated that sediment dumping by Corps would increase flood
risks. In actuality, these projects increase the carrying capacity of the
river by widening the channel, which can carry more water, helping reduce
flood height.
King should ask a few more questions and do more research before proposing
something that will not be in the interest of Iowans.
— Chris Larson, Atlantic
 

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