Senator Kit Bond has long railed about the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s mandated manmade Missouri River Spring Rise to better protect the pallid sturgeon. And, he says there was a “bit of luck” in that the Spring Rise did not take place this year.
Bond toured some of the flood-damaged areas along the Missouri River and its tributaries, Friday, expressing his appreciation for the cooperation being seen among state and federal agencies working to protect Missourians. The tour, however, gave him an opportunity to criticize the Spring Rise, which was called off this year because of low water levels upriver from Missouri.
“If we’d had that Spring Rise and this unexpected rain storm had come up,” said Bond, “We would have seen flooding worse … worse than in 1993.”
Bond and many other Missouri politicians – both Republicans and Democrats – have raised concerns, in the past, about how the livelihood of the pallid sturgeon, a fish, is being accorded protections that could end up harming humans.
“We don’t know whether Spring Rises really do act as Viagara for pallid sturgeon,” says Bond. He adds, “It’s far better to let nature experiment with it than to have the Fish and Wildlife Service putting human lives and property in danger on an untested experiment.”
Download/Listen: Senator Kit Bond on flooding and pallid sturgeon (:30 MP3)