February 9, 2012

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Corps: Missouri River reservoir prep on schedule

January 20, 2012 By

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ effort to open up storage space on upstream reservoirs to receive runoff this spring is going according to plan.

The Corps updated the media tonight and Water Management Division Chief Jody Farhat said already about 500,000-acre-feet more storage is open now than a year ago. “The total system storage in the main stem reservoir system is currently at 56.4-million-acre-feet. That’s 400,000-acre-feet below the base of annual flood control pool, thus providing an additional 400,000-acre-feet of additional flood control storage for the 2012 runoff season. Last year at this time system storage was at 56.9, about 100,000-acre-feet above the base of annual flood control zone.”

Farhat says that gives the Corps some wiggle room. “What this additional storage gives us is the opportunity perhaps in the spring to hold additional water back if we get rainfall events downstream. Having that additional storage provides just a little bit of additional flexibility.”

The extra space also allows more room for higher inflows upstream as well, but right now Farhat says the snowpack does not look threatening. Farhat says the snow-water equivalence on the plains reported by the National Weather Service remains less than one inch, with few exceptions. NWS shows a below-normal mountain snowpack throughout the Missouri River basin as well, though storms this week have increased that amount.

With the River and most of its reservoirs having frozen up this week, Farhat says the Corps will increase flows into the River beginning tomorrow. “We’ll step up our releases from Garrison at a rate of about 1,000-cubic-feet-per-second every other day until we reach 26- or 27,000 in early February.”

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters, Flooding, Military, News, Politics & Government, Weather Tagged With: , ,

Adjutant General welcomes last troops from Iraq

December 23, 2011 By

The last Missouri National Guard members have returned to the state as part of the U.S. military’s withdrawal from Iraq.

Major General Stephen Danner says the 23 members of the 139th Airlift Wing of the Air National Guard are home just in time to be with their families for Christmas. Those soldiers were providing security at Bagdad International Airport.

Missouri's Adjutant General, Major General Stephen Danner extends holiday greetings to Missourians from the Missouri National Guard. Photo courtesy, Missouri National Guard.

The 139th is based in St. Joseph.

Danner says for a military man or woman, being home for the holidays is tremendous. “When you’re out in the field you’ve got your buddies with you that you celebrate the holidays with, but we all know that no matter how good our friends are, our families are our blood. You always want to be home with your family and especially with your kids. That’s something you just can’t replace and you can’t live over again.”

Had it not been for this withdrawal, the General says it is unclear how long the Guard might have had a presence in Iraq. The 139th was on a 6 month deployment. Danner says, “I know that at one point they thought that the Iraqi government would ask them to stay on maybe another couple of years. But, obviously that did not happen and I know these airmen, being the last Missourians out of Iraq, will be glad to be home this week.”

Though the last Missouri National Guard personnel have left Iraq, General Danner points out there are many still deployed across the globe. That includes, “…a medical unit and an administrative unit in Egypt, right now in the Sanai with U.N. forces, we had the 138th infantry in Japan not too long ago, we’ve had Air Guard in Thailand, we’ve been in Africa with the Army Guard and with the Air Guard went down to Chile in their earthquake earlier this year, and we also have Air and Army Guard in Central America.”

The general notes, the Guard has remained on State Emergency Duty since April 2, and he expects to remain on that status through March and perhaps longer. “We’ve had over 2,500 Army and Air Guardsmen activated for our state mission.”

Filed Under: Human Interest, Military, News Tagged With: , , ,

Military, out of country ballots available tomorrow (AUDIO)

December 22, 2011 By

We’re only about six weeks away from a presidential primary election.  State and local election officials are starting the absentee voting process for a special group of Missourians.

Thousands of Missourians are or will be overseas by the time February 7th gets here.  Absentee ballots for them are available tomorrow from local election authorities. For those out of the country, applying for one of those ballots is a little more complicated than it is for stay-at-homes.

Deputy Secretary of State Waylene Hiles in the elections office says applications for those ballots are available on the Secretary of State’s web page. In most circumstances the ballot cannot be cast on the internet.  They have to be sent back through regular mail or through shipping services.  .

However, a person in one of more than fifty hostile zones can use the internet or a fax machine to return the ballot.  The rest have to use regular mail or express services to get their ballots back by February 7th. 

It’s possible to authorize a guardian or a relative get a ballot and return it to the election authority office without the voters waiting for weeks to get the ballot and for weeks to get it back.

AUDIO: Interview with Waylene Hiles 8:02 mp3

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: 2012 Campaign, Elections, Military, News

Battleship Arizona records being saved in St. Louis (AUDIO)

December 7, 2011 By

Seventy years ago today, the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. About 2,400 U.S. personnel were killed including 1,177 officers and crewmen aboard the battleship Arizona. It remains at the bottom of the Harbor beneath a memorial bearing the names of those lost on her, and others who served on the Arizona and will be laid to rest there.

One connection to that battle can be found over 4,000 miles east, at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. It houses more than 56 million records on U.S. military individuals dating back to 1841. Among them are several hundred files on crewmembers of the Arizona.

Those files were aboard the battleship when it sank. They are now are undergoing conservation measures by the Center’s archivists.

Director Bryan McGraw says he and his staff didn’t know what they had until a request came in for one of those records. “Wow, this one is from the Arizona; that type of thing. So we’ve started a process to take the ones that we know of based upon crew manifests and things, to pull those records and give them some additional conservation treatments because they’re in such fragile condition.”

McGraw says he knows of a few hundred such personnel files from the Arizona that survive. These include a wealth of information on each sailor. “It would have things about their entrance and physical, it would have their assignment history, it would have a variety of demographic data about the individual, various awards or decorations if they earned it, training reports, fitness reports, performance appraisals; those types of things, any kind of discharge or separation documents.” They also including facts of particular interest to families. “It may also have information about dependents; if they got married while they were in the service, if they had children, beneficiaries, things like that. So, if you’re constructing a family history…family tree, these types of records are very, very popular for researchers.”

McGraw says the documents have sustained water damage, bear residue from fires from the battle, and some still smell like fuel. A variety of steps are being taken to save them. That includes mending, humidifying and flattening and removing fasteners, rust and debris.

To see images of some of the documents, courtsey of the Center, visit this [slideshow of documents].

Once each document has been treated as necessary, McGraw says it goes back on file. “These will be kept in a secure room that we have where we store prominent records of famous and historic individuals and figures. They will be kept in there because of the damage that they sustained, and the historical value.”

The project could take months or years before it is completed, as the staff continues to answer other requests for information.

For information on the Center and to learn how to make a request, visit its website.

AUDIO:  interview with National Personnel Records Center Director Bryan McGraw – 10:34

Filed Under: Human Interest, Military, News

McCaskill wants Afghanistan money kept here (AUDIO)

December 2, 2011 By

Senator McCaskill says hundreds of millions of dollars are better spent on roads and bridges in this country instead of on big projects in Afghanistan.  She says the projects in Afghanistan aren’t doing any good.

McCaskill is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who has regularly criticized military contracting programs in Iraq and in Afghanistan.  She wants to cut as much as 700-milion dollars out of the Commander’s Emergency Response Program and put it into the federal highway trust fund. 

McCaskill says the money is in a program that was intended for finance small projects designed to win the hearts and minds of people.  But she says it’s become a runaway program. She says hundreds of millions of dollars are being used for projects built in unsecure environments and cannot be sustained.  .

McCaskill says teams of inspectors have reported many major projects cannot be protected from insurgent attacks and are not improving services to people or loyalty to a government.  She says the defense department inspector general has reported as much as 38-milion dollars in the program is vulnerable to abuse, fraud, or waste.

The Pentagon calls the program “critical” to fighting insurgency. 

McCaskill introduced her proposal during debate on the new defense appropriations authorization bill but the Senate did not vote on it before approving the bill. McCaskill still has other avenues to remove the money from the budget.

 McCaskill speaks in senate 9:11 mp3

Filed Under: Military, News
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