Working with the flooding on the Missouri River this past year, our Sierra Missouri River activist network has been undercut by an organized farm lobby that respects truth and science hardly at all.  Missouri and Iowa floodplain farmers even deny the cause of the flooding, instead claiming a conspiracy between the Corps and environmentalists. If twenty years ago the Corps and other scientists had heeded environmental critics and worked toward a functioning floodplian, we would not have seen this billion dollar disaster. The valley and its residents remain under the threat of similar floods in the future as the farm lobby has beaten the Army Corps into submission through the recent appropriations bill. 

Unless the public wises up to corngrowers and the bureau, taxpayer dollars are going to rebuild a flood control system that led to the disaster we had in 2011.

The harvest of 2011 at last puts to rest one of their most compelling hoodwinks:  more than half the harvest went straight to the ethanol refineries.  They are no longer committed to feeding the world, just making a profit.  Of course they will continue to claim they must abuse the earth to feed the world.

Jim Redmond