Missouri Farm Bureau officials join state officials in pressing the Army Corps of Engineers to quit dumping soil into the Missouri River.
Missouri Clean Water Commissioners have rejected a suggestion by the Corps of Engineers to study the impact of dumping tons of soil into the Missouri River; an effort to provide habitat for the endangered pallid sturgeon. Leslie Holloway with the Missouri Farm Bureau says the project is expensive, perhaps as much as $3 billion over 30 years. Holloway says the suggestion to study the project appears to simply be a delaying tactic.
A sore spot with state and Farm Bureau officials is that the Corps began dumping soil into the Missouri without notifying the state about its intentions. Holloway says it makes no sense for the Corps to dump soil into the Missouri while Missourians pay a tenth of a cent sales tax to conserve topsoil. The Army Corps of Engineers project could eventually dump 24 million tons of soil into the Missouri River.
The Missouri Farm Bureau worries that the project will further hurt barge traffic on the Missouri River, an important transportation source for farmers.
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