Excellent lead editorial in today's Omaha paper.

Omaha World-Herald
May 15, 2002

Seize the opportunity

The Army Corps of Engineers is scheduled to reveal its recommended plan for
managing the Missouri River by the end of this month. The opportunities are
immense.

The river has been managed for 60 years, since the mainstream dams were put
into place, for the benefit of navigation, power production and agriculture.
The result is a highly controlled, even channelized, waterway that has lost
much of its natural character, habitat and wildlife.

But new days bring new ideas. And the new idea for the Missouri River,
supported by science, by wildlife experts and by environmental
organizations, among others, is a new way for the corps to manage the river.
It is a system that takes habitat, wildlife and fish into account. A system
that encourages people - tourists, yes, but also the millions of residents
who live near the water - to get close, to hike, bike, boat, fish, hunt and
put the river to its best uses.

The corps will decide among several options.

At one end is no change. At the other is a river that rises sharply in the
spring and falls to summer lows that would certainly eliminate all barge
traffic for several weeks. This might also disrupt other important
functions, such as the supply of cooling water for nuclear power plants such
as the Fort Calhoun and Cooper facilities.

The logical alternative, then, is somewhere between those two extremes.

Some form of the spring-rise, summer-low idea is heavily favored by
scientists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Academy of
Sciences and other researchers. They have said it's a vital step to preserve
the endangered species that depend on the Missouri for life and to improve
the habitat for all species that use the river.

The proposal is opposed by barge operators, who in some years might have to
interrupt service in the summer because of low water. It also meets
opposition from farmers with land in the flood plain because periodically
their fields could be inundated by the spring rise.

Five of the seven states through which the Missouri flows have recommended a
compromise that would allow the corps to experiment with high spring rises
and low summer flows to see if the idea benefits fish and wildlife. Missouri
and Iowa, however, have rejected even that concession.

Thus, the Army Corps of Engineers' decision.

More than a decade ago, it began revising its management manual for the
river. Its action this month is a key step in the long process of thought,
study and public input. The decision to be made is not simple, but to us it
seems clear:

The corps can decide to ignore science, environmental degradation and a wide
range of public opinion by maintaining the status quo, either as is or with
a few bells and whistles that it can claim are improvements.

Or it can do the right thing. It can work with science and with all of the
environmental expertise that has appeared in support of management changes.
It can alter its mind-set a bit, get rid of the parochial straitjacket in
which it has been confined for so many years and begin working not only for
its traditional constituents but also for the millions of people who would
use and enjoy the river it could help create.

This is an unparalleled opportunity to change the Missouri River from the
patchwork ditch that it has become and create a vital and useful waterway
for America.
Seize the moment.



Erin Jordahl
Director, Iowa Chapter Sierra Club
3839 Merle Hay Road, Suite 280
Des Moines, IA 50310
515-277-8868
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