This week, Senator John Thune (R-SD) stated that the temporary levees now protecting Pierre, Fort Pierre, and Dakota Dunes, South Dakota, may need to be made permanent. Thune, a long-time climate change skeptic, admitted that those three communities could face similar flood events in the future. High, permanent levees would protect the residents of those towns from a larger, more voluminous future Missouri. Continue Reading »
One Man’s Levee is Another Man’s Loss
Notes from the Field, June 28, 2011, A Problem at Big Bend Dam
The Army announced today (June 28, 2011) that it will halt flows through the emergency spillway at Big Bend Dam on July 1, 2011. The engineers need to stop the violent movement of water through the spillway so they can approach it with a boat. They want to examine the soundness of the concrete spillway and the structures around it. The Army engineers will deploy a sonar system to inspect the portions of the spillway that will remain underwater. The Army stated, “The purpose of the inspection is to assess the spillway’s performance….” In other words, the Army is concerned about erosion backward toward the dam (known as back-cutting). The press release underplays the seriousness of the situation, which is understandable. The Army does not want to panic the public. But the Army has been downplaying the gravity of this flood, and its potential dangers, since May. Continue Reading »
Notes from the Field, June 27, 2011, Back-Cutting at Big Bend Dam
Big Bend Dam, South Dakota. The Missouri is flowing through the emergency spillway at Big Bend Dam. The water shooting through the spillway gates is moving so fast and with such erosive power that it is back-cutting toward the earthen dam itself. Left unchecked, the water could threaten the structural integrity of the dam. Although at present, that scenario is highly unlikely. Nonetheless, the Army is concerned about the erosion. To address the issue, a dump truck hauled large blocks of quarried stone to the trouble spot. The Army plans on dropping the rock atop the eroded bank sections to halt the back-cutting. A civilian working for the Army acknowledged that the engineers did not expect to be in this predicament when they first opened the spillway gates to the Missouri’s floodwaters. The back-cutting caught the Army by surprise. But the military is on top of the problem, with tons of pink Sioux quartzite. Continue Reading »
Notes from the Field, June 26, 2011, Fort Randall Dam and Reservoir
Pickstown, South Dakota. The Missouri River is cascading through the spillway at Fort Randall Dam. According to the Army, 110,300 cfs is safely passing through the spillway on its way southeast toward Gavin’s Point Dam, Sioux City, Iowa, and the lower valley. The white and green water moves fast atop the smooth concrete surface of the spillway. Two high concrete walls on either side of the spillway keep the river water from moving sideways. The linear flow of water in the spillway is in such contrast to the movement of water through the lower valley. There the Missouri appears filthy dirty, messy, and undirected. It slops over farmland, burrows under levees, and knocks over trailer houses. Here at Fort Randall Dam, the Army still looks like it’s in control of the situation. In the spillway, the river is moving where the Army wants it. But the Army’s control begins to diminish at the foot of the dam. Just off the end of the spillway, the Missouri is eroding its banks and tumbling trees into its channel. Continue Reading »
Notes from the Field, June 25, 2011, Niobrara’s Missouri River Woes
Niobrara, Nebraska. The small community of Niobrara sits on a bluff on the south bank of the Niobrara River where it enters the Missouri. Since its founding in the 19th century, the town has had a difficult history with the river. In April 1881, the Missouri smashed into the first town site during its April rise. Cold slushy water and cakes of ice knocked down buildings and swept through streets. The residents rebuilt the town in the Missouri River bottoms, gambling that the river would not take the town’s second incarnation. In 1955, the Army closed the earthen embankment at Gavin’s Point Dam downstream at Yankton, South Dakota. The reservoir behind the dam soon filled and backed up to the foot of Niobrara. By the 1960s, buildings in low-lying neighborhoods began experiencing regular water damage from the ever-rising elevation of the riverbed in front of the town. The delta that formed at the head of Lewis and Clark Lake sent water into the basements of Niobrara’s buildings. In 1972, residents moved the town to higher ground. The old town site became a golf course and city park. The troubles with the Missouri appeared to be over. But the Missouri has come back. Continue Reading »
Notes from the Field, June 23, 2011, Speedbumps in the Missouri
Adam’s Prairie Preserve, McCook Lake, South Dakota. The Missouri, which normally flows beyond the southern border of the preserve, has moved onto the preserve itself, sinking a string of timber tracts situated along the sanctuary’s lower end. The inundation of the forestlands has forced wildlife, such as turkeys, raccoons, and deer to seek safety on higher ground. This evening a herd of nearly 30 deer mingled next to the engorged river. A half mile south of the deer, the Missouri could be seen passing through tall cottonwood trees. I wondered whether this herd had once made its home amongst those trees. Usually deer bunch-up at food plots and in refuges during the bitter cold winter months to feed on the limited forage and to avoid the multitudes of orange-clad hunters prowling the countryside. It is odd to see such a big herd during the heat and humidity of high summer. In all likelihood, the flood has put the animals to flight and has forced them to congregate in a large herd. The inundation of so much riverside habitat will put intensified animal pressure on the remaining habitat in the valley. Continue Reading »
The Great Missouri River Flood of 2011: Not an Act of God
Placing responsibility for the Great Missouri River Flood of 2011 on God ignores all of the ways humans have contributed to the disaster. It also absolves those partially responsible for the flood. Even worse, it hinders us from learning from the flood so that we can prevent a similar scenario in the future. Off the top of my head, I can think of five ways humans brought on this flood.
First, the Missouri basin states have lost millions of Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) acres in the past five years. CRP lands had either slowed or halted runoff into streams and rivers. Encouraged by high commodity prices, plains and prairie farmers engaged in a Great Plow-up that converted sod to corn. Montana lost nearly 400,000 acres of CRP land between 2006 and 2010. That equals 625 square miles. The two Dakotas and Montana lost 960,000 CRP acres in 2007 and another 335,000 CRP acres in 2008. That land area is equivalent to 2,023 square miles. Even more conservation land went into corn in 2009, 2010, and during this year’s planting season. As a result of the Great Plow-up, drenching rains now hit cultivated cropland and quickly drain into the Missouri or one of its feeder streams. Farmers, and their desire to maximize production and profit, contributed mightily to this flood. Continue Reading »
Notes from the Field, June 18, 2011, Sodden Timber Poses Threats
The media outlets in Sioux City are publicizing the recent arrival of the Nebraska State Patrol’s SWAT Team at South Sioux City, Nebraska. Apparently, the highly trained para-military men are there to patrol and protect the levee on the outskirts of town. I saw three of the elite troopers today at a coffee house in Sioux City. They looked like they were ready for combat. With their skin-tight haircuts, jet black combat fatigues, handguns, and aggressive “up your’s” facial expressions, I seriously feared for the gophers, squirrels, dogs, or other burrowing creatures that might approach the levee. The SWAT Team is likely to drop any furry, four-legged critter that comes within a 100 yards of the levee with a .308 caliber sniper rifle. South Sioux City residents should feel alot safer with the SWAT Team in town. Continue Reading »
Everyone’s River: Democratizing the Lower Missouri
The Great Missouri River Flood of 2011 is not only challenging the Army’s physical hold on the river, it is also altering long-held perceptions of the river and the human relationship with it. More specifically, the lack of an economic justification for the navigation channel and its flood-prone character are at long last coming under intense public scrutiny.
Since the nineteenth century, the lower basin states of Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska have determined the Missouri’s highest use. Interests in the state of Missouri, and especially within Kansas City, have had the strongest influence on federal policy toward the Missouri River. For example, in the 1920s, real estate mogul J.C. Nichols of Kansas City and his colleagues in the Kansas City Commercial Club (the predecessor organization to today’s Chamber of Commerce) successfully lobbied Congress and the executive branch to build a six-foot deep navigation channel from the river’s mouth to Kansas City, a distance of 364 river miles. Missouri men also played crucial Continue Reading »
Notes from the Field, June 16, 2011, River Hammers Channelization Works
Sioux City, Iowa. On Wednesday, June 15, 2011, “Sioux City Journal” photographer Tim Hynds shot an aerial photo of the Port Neal power plant along the Missouri River west of Salix, Iowa. The image, which appeared in the June 16, 2011, edition of the “Journal,” on page A8 shows the rising Missouri as it flows past the facility. What’s notable about the picture isn’t its portrayal of the engorged river threatening Port Neal. Rather, what makes this such a memorable photograph is its depiction of the Army’s pile dikes just upstream from the electrical-generating plant. Hynds’ photo clearly shows a series of pile dikes in the center of the Missouri River. The pile dikes are not supposed to be in the center of the river! Continue Reading »
