http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/16/opinion/16WED3.html?th New York Times Editorial July 16, 2003 New Hope for the Missouri About the only place the environmental community has any real hope of victory in its continuing war with the Bush administration is in the courts. And so it proved last week when Federal District Judge Gladys Kessler ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to reduce water levels in the Missouri River to help save three endangered species: two bird species and one fish species, the pallid sturgeon. The decision, which is likely to be challenged, is a victory for American Rivers and other conservation groups. It is a defeat for the White House and for Midwestern commercial interests led by Senator Christopher Bond of Missouri, who insists that lower river levels will threaten municipal water supplies and hurt the barge industry. Scientists have long known that manipulating river flows to mimic the seasonal heartbeat of a natural waterway - in the Missouri's case, a periodic spring surge and an annual summer ebb - can save threatened wildlife. That is why the Fish and Wildlife Service, confronted three years ago with clear threats to the three species, ordered the corps to alter seasonal flows. The corps itself concluded in a later study that modest changes of the sort just ordered by Judge Kessler could be made without appreciable damage to commercial interests. It also concluded that the barge industry was of small net economic significance to the region. This infuriated Mr. Bond, who reminded President Bush of his campaign pledge to leave the river alone. The White House then pressured the service to reverse itself, despite objections from government biologists and the National Academy of Sciences - elevating politics over science and drawing a sharp rebuke from Judge Kessler. The lower Missouri can never be restored to its original grandeur. Committed to the barge industry's needs, the corps over the last 40 years has turned a 732-mile stretch of the river between Sioux City, Iowa, and St. Louis into a navigation channel. This will be hard to undo. But on the eve of the 200th anniversary of Lewis and Clark's historic journey, Americans can begin to hope for a better future for the river that carried the expedition westward. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search Erin E. Jordahl Director, Iowa Chapter Sierra Club 3839 Merle Hay Road, Suite 280 Des Moines, IA 50310 515-277-8868 [log in to unmask] www.iowa.sierraclub.org - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To get off the IOWA-TOPICS list, send any message to: [log in to unmask]