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states she doesn’t consider it necessary to boost Missouri River flows into
the Mississippi — something the politicians urgently had sought.
Darcy, a top Army Corps official, noted this week’s revised National
Weather Service forecast, which showed the Mississippi’s level wasn’t
falling as rapidly as expected. She also said the corps is hastening its push
to rid the river of rock pinnacles south of St. Louis that endanger barges
when the water level is low.
Darcy also reinforced what the corps has been insisting for weeks:
Reducing the Missouri’s flow is necessary because low levels in its upper
basin could negatively affect recreation in the upper Missouri while
impacting drinking water supplies, animal habitat and hydropower. Darcy
added that the corps is legislatively bound to act in the best interest of the
Missouri River, with what happens on the Mississippi incidental.
U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill did not greet the letter warmly. The
Missouri Democrat asserted Friday the corps would be to blame if
shipping on the Mississippi — a corridor on which everything from grain
to coal, chemicals and petroleum products is transported — gets slowed or
shut down completely.
“Missouri businesses and jobs depend on our ability to continue
commercial navigation along the Mississippi — and the dropping water
level can’t be ignored,” McCaskill said. “The Army Corps is now saying
that we can continue navigation without increased flows from the
Missouri, and we should hold them accountable if that prediction doesn’t
pan out.”
The corps last month began paring the outflow from an upper
Missouri River dam in South Dakota with plans to gradually cut about
two-thirds of the flow through next Tuesday. That action stoked concerns
among Mississippi River barge operators, given that Missouri River water
accounts for about 78 percent of the Mississippi at St. Louis.
Of chief concern is a pivotal 180-mile stretch of the Mississippi from
St. Louis to the confluence with the Ohio River at Cairo, Ill., where heavy
two-way traffic includes shipments going south to the Gulf of Mexico, as
well as transports from the Illinois and Ohio rivers headed north to
Chicago and Minneapolis. There, the Mississippi is 15 to 20 feet below