For Immediate Release June 13, 2002 Contacts: Chad Smith, American Rivers, (402) 477-7910, cell (402)730-5593 Eric Eckl, American Rivers, (202) 347-7550, cell (202) 486-7877 White House, Army Corps sound retreat on Missouri River (Washington, DC) - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, with the apparent blessing of the White House, revealed today its intentions to avoid its obligations to alter the operations of its Missouri River dams by strong-arming the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to withdraw or modify a "biological opinion" that called for modifications to a river management scheme that is slowly sterilizing America's longest river. "This action flies in the face of the Administration's repeated pledges to rely on sound science in environmental decision-making," said Rebecca R. Wodder, president of American Rivers. "Once again, the White House has catered to a influential industry and disregarded a conclusive body of science, economics, and legal precedent." Biologists for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service have given the Corps a 2003 deadline to alter dam operations to prevent the extinction of three species and to begin restoring the river. Specifically, they called on the Corps to begin releasing a "spring rise" of at least 49,500 cubic feet per second to raise river levels for two weeks in May and to begin dropping river flows to 21,000 cubic feet per second in late July and early August. To balance ecological and human needs along the river, the Service's river experts only called for a spring rise during normal water years, once every three years on average - and not in years of drought or flood. Today, Corps officials began circulating "talking points" to members of the media indicating that rather than make the needed changes, the agency intended to seek a rewrite of the Fish and Wildlife Service's "biological opinion." In a meeting with conservation leaders just last week, White House environmental advisors had indicated that the Corps would be acting at their direction on the Missouri River. "With the apparent blessing of the White House, the Corps is setting a course to violate the Endangered Species Act, and abdicating their responsibility for river management to the courts," said Rebecca R. Wodder, President of American Rivers. "If you read between the lines, what the White House is really saying is that it is willing to break the law and let native fish and wildlife go extinct on behalf of an influential industry," she said. The Corps' action today fulfills a prophecy of the National Academy of Sciences, which noted in its January report that although the "smallest benefits among authorized purposes along the mainstem [of the Missouri River] come from irrigation and navigation," the barge companies and agribusinesses in a small portion of the floodplain "wield great political influence and may resist changes to traditional management policies." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - For SC email list T-and-C, send: GET TERMS-AND-CONDITIONS.CURRENT to [log in to unmask]