Army Corps Plan Will be Devastating for the Middle Miss
True to form, the Army Corps of Engineers has put out another faulty plan for managing the Middle Mississippi River that will cause real harm if left unchecked. The plan itself is not new; in fact, it’s over 100 years old. It’s a very outdated approach to river management that fails to evaluate modern methods, and recklessly fails to account for current risks to people and habitat; putting both in real danger. So Prairie Rivers Network has joined a lawsuit to put a stop to the Corps’ recklessness.
At the heart of this legal dispute is the Corps’ failure to prepare a legally adequate environmental impact statement. The Corps has refused to consider current scientific information to assess the impacts of the construction activities it uses to maintain the navigation channel in the Middle Mississippi. The “Middle Miss” is the 195-mile stretch of the river between St. Louis, Missouri and Cairo, Illinois.
Many of these activities include massive channel construction (including construction of hundreds of miles of river training structures), excavation, dredging and bank hardening practices. We’ve written about the problems with river training structures in the past. The Corps’ insistence on using these methods without complying with the law threatens irreparable environmental harm to and ecological collapse of the Middle Mississippi River.
The Corps’ mismanagement has greatly harmed wildlife by altering and even eliminating various habitats needed to sustain different species of fish, birds, and other animals. For instance, the Fish and Wildlife Service has found that the Corps’ actions are a threat to the continued existence of the pallid sturgeon and the Higgins eye pearly mussel, and will likely harm the least tern, the bald eagle, the Indiana bat and other species of mussels.
Recent data, though ignored by the Corps, irrefutably show that river training structures also increase the frequency and severity of flooding. The structures narrow the river channel and thereby increase flood heights, placing people’s lives and property at increased risk from flooding. In some communities, the training structures have increased flood heights by 6 to 8 feet, in another, by as much as 15 feet.
Fellow plaintiffs in the suit include National Wildlife Federation, American Rivers, Great Rivers Habitat Alliance, and Missouri Coalition for the Environment. We are asking the court to declare that the Corps has abused its discretion and violated the law, and must, therefore, perform a new environmental impact analysis that fully considers harmful impacts to the Middle Mississippi, its people, and its wildlife. In the meantime, the court should prohibit the Corps from building any new river training structures.
Despite the harm caused by over a century of Army Corps mismanagement, the Middle Mississippi River remains a biologically rich, though threatened, ecosystem. The river still supports a multitude of species including birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, fish, plants, and mussels. For those who may not know, mussels play a vital role in maintaining healthy aquatic ecosystems, providing food, filtration, and river bed stabilization. Now more than ever, all of these species need our protection.
It’s unfortunate, but it seems the Corps must be dragged, kicking and screaming, into a 21st century approach to managing and caring for the river that works with-and not against-nature. We aim to help them get there.
Kim Knowles leads our efforts to promote resilient rivers and communities through the protection and restoration of natural floodplain functions, and through the promotion of renewable energy, with a particular focus on low income community solar programs.
