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Congressman Graves: Corps’ priorities for Missouri River are backwards (AUDIO)

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A congressman who represents flood-damaged northern Missouri is blasting the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, saying it’s “long past time” that flood control is the top priority for the Missouri River.

U.S. Rep. Sam Graves, R-Tarkio, tours the MFA Rail facility near northwest Missouri’s Hamilton on October 8, 2018 (file photo courtesy of Congressman Graves’ office)

U.S. Rep. Sam Graves, R-Tarkio, the ranking Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, visited flood-impacted Brunswick on Friday. Brunswick, a Chariton County town of about 800, sustained severe flooding from the Grand River this summer.

Graves met with Brunswick officials to discuss flood recovery efforts. He tells Missourinet he’s losing his patience.

“This is so frustrating, it’s getting old, it’s getting tiresome, it’s affecting people’s lives, it’s affecting communities,” Graves says.

He says flooding has caused devastation across north Missouri, including Brunswick. Graves describes the Corps’ management priorities on the Missouri River as “backwards.”

“And it’s so frustrating, you just literally want to pull your hair out,” says Graves. “And we continue to pound on the Corps and push the Corps and we can’t seem to get anywhere with them.”

Graves agrees with Governor Mike Parson’s call for the Corps to manage the Missouri River differently.

Parson notes that he and fellow governors from Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska have met with the Corps, urging them to give states a seat at the table. Parson says states must have a significant say in Missouri River management.

Graves represents 36 counties across north Missouri. His sprawling district, which has more square miles than nine states, spans from the Missouri to the Mississippi rivers.

Graves’ district includes Brunswick, St. Joseph and Hannibal.

Click here to listen to Brian Hauswirth’s full interview with U.S. Rep. Sam Graves, which was recorded on August 7, 2019:

Copyright © 2019 · Missourinet

Thunderstorms, hail and flash flooding possible Tuesday evening in parts of Missouri (AUDIO)

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Strong to severe thunderstorms are possible across much of Missouri late Tuesday afternoon and evening.

The National Weather Service (NWS) in Pleasant Hill says 65 mph wind gusts, hail and an isolated tornado or two are possible across parts of Missouri on June 4, 2019 (map courtesy of NWS Pleasant Hill Twitter page)

National Weather Service (NWS) Pleasant Hill meteorologist Hal Pietrycha says the storms should start near Kansas City.

“Right now we’re watching just on the state line with Kansas and Missouri that general quadrant basically right now, south of the Missouri River, or put another way, south of I-70 at the state line,” Pietrycha says.

He says damaging winds and large hail will be the main threat. He says wind gusts up to 65 miles per hour are possible.

“Biggest threats today right now appear to be large hail, by that golf ball-sized perhaps,” says Pietrycha.

He says flash flooding is also possible.

The NWS says impacted towns could include St. Joseph, Chillicothe, Columbia, Jefferson City, Sedalia, Hannibal and Rolla.

Mr. Pietrycha also tells Missourinet an isolated tornado or two are possible today.

Click here to listen to Brian Hauswirth’s full interview with NWS Pleasant Hill meteorologist Hal Pietrycha, which was recorded on June 4, 2019:

Copyright © 2019 · Missourinet

Missouri lawmaker on bridge funding plan: We’ve maxed out the MoDOT credit card

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Senate President Pro-Tem Dave Schatz presents SS#2 SCR 14 before the House Budget Committee this morning. Courtesy Tim Bommel, House Communications

Lawmakers from both parties agree that bridges need fixing across Missouri. However, opinions quickly diverge on how to pay for it.

Wednesday, Senate President Pro Tem Dave Schatz, R-Sullivan, presented his chamber’s plans to the House Budget Committee. The Senate version of a transportation funding plan borrows $301 million in bonds and uses an unspecified amount of money from general revenue to finance the bonds for bridge repair and replacement. The plan is contingent on getting a specific federal (INFRA) grant for up to $172 million dollars to replace the I-70 Missouri River bridge near Rocheport, which has been downgraded to poor condition.

The bridge is a major connector for cross country trucking and travel across the U.S.

Since voters rejected a statewide proposition to fund roads and bridges through a gas tax, legislators have struggled with a funding solution to maintain the nation’s seventh largest state highway systems, yet the nation’s 48th nationally in revenue per mile.

Sen. Schatz says only the “critical nature of this bridge,” makes him support bonding and using general revenue. Gov. Mike Parson introduced bonding for bridge repair in his January State of the State address.

“The right thing to do for transportation, that we’ve done for 95 years, is to do a good motor fuel tax,” Schatz told the House panel. “Either the Legislature is going to have the political courage to increase the fuel tax or we’re going to have to sell that message to the constituents that we represent in order to address that because 30 to 40 cents of every dollar that we collect comes from people who do not live in Missouri and I do not think general revenue, long-term, all Missouri residents shouldn’t be paying for the full fare.”

And MoDOT is tapped out and working from borrowed money. Between the years 2000 and 2010, the agency ran up $4 billion in debt. Since then, no further debt was accrued and McKenna and others have taken that debt down to $1.616 billion by this June.  McKenna sees this new bonding as “strategic and targeted” because of low interest rates and says it buys the state some time to come up with more funding solutions.

Rep. Greg Razer, D-Kansas City, reviews bridge budget during committee. Razer served on the bipartisan 21st Century Missouri Transportation System Task Force. Photo Tim Bommel, House Communications

Kansas City Representative Greg Razer called for the Legislature to figure out a long-term way to pay for roads and bridges. He summed up the dilemma for House members:

“We’ve maxed out the MoDOT credit card so now we’re going to the general revenue credit card and saying ‘we’ve got to fix this bridge’ and believe me, I 100-percent agree that bridge has to be fixed,” Razer told his colleagues. “This is frustrating to me because I’m in a position now of what I consider two bad votes. I vote ‘yes’ and I’m voting to put us more into debt and opening up the Pandora’s box of GR (general revenue). I vote ‘no’ and we have eight-hour backups on I-70.”

House Budget Chairman Cody Smith’s own version of bridge repair funding allocated $100 million from general revenue.

To wrap up this hearing, he cautioned Director McKenna (and perhaps the governor) not to “pigeonhole the Legislature” in the future.

“I would just ask that in future (grant) applications you not be prescriptive to what the General Assembly may or may not do to finance these projects or to raise the amount needed to pull down federal grants. Because after all, we are writing the checks for the ventures that you are launching into,” Smith said.

MoDOT expects to get a decision on the federal grant in September or October.

Copyright © 2019 · Missourinet

Governors of Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska meet with Army Corps officials to discuss flood-prevention

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Three governors feeling the pain of major flooding recently are calling on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to change its management of the Missouri River. The governors of Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa met Wednesday in Iowa with Corps and Federal Emergency Management officials to talk about growing flooding problems. At a press conference Wednesday afternoon in Council Bluffs, Governor Mike Parson says something needs to change.

Three governors at meeting with Army Corps and FEMA officials (photo from @GovParsonMO twitter account)

“For far too long, we’ve had these incidents occur and we’ve had meeting after meeting, but it seems to be the same results all the time. I think it’s time that we need some straight up answers from the Corps of Engineers of how they’re managing the river,” says Parson.

Northwest and southeast Missouri have especially been hit hard by recent flooding. Parson has made a couple of trips to northwest Missouri to view the damage. About half of Nebraska has been devastated by flood waters.

“First of all, we’ve got to find out just kind of what happened. I think we are still looking for those answers,” says Parson. “But more importantly, what can we do in the short-term and what can we do in the long-term. We’re still not out of the woods yet. We still have got water coming out, snow melt and ice coming out, plus spring rains that could really affect us.”

Parson, a Republican, says the management of the river is key to the citizens of each state.

“When you look at the states that are involved here of the Missouri River, it has a huge impact on the United States of what it is we do,” Parson says. “We are totally dependent on the management of those rivers for a lot of reasons. When you talk about that livelihood, that economic development side of it, it is really centered around the management of the rivers. That affects every one of us and the people of our states and the economy of our states. That’s really how important this is.”

From left to right, Governors Parson of Missouri, Ricketts of Nebraska & Reynolds of Iowa (Photo from @GovRicketts Twitter account)

He says there need to be other solutions to prevent further flooding issues.

“You look at the reservoir situation. Can we have more reservoir space to be able to handle this water that we know is going to be coming here every year? Can we build maybe more levees,” asks Parson. “But I think more importantly, does the state take more of an active role in these decisions instead of just leaving it up to one agency? I think the states will have to take more of a role in the management of the river and the Corps is going to have to work with us from a different perspective of what we’ve done than in the past.”

Last Friday, Parson signed an executive order giving the Missouri Department of Natural Resources some flexibility in easing requirements during and after recent Missouri flooding.

He says river management needs to get back to the basics by prioritizing flooding and safety.

Travel problems prevented the governor of Kansas from attending the gathering, but she plans to be part of the next meeting in three weeks.

Copyright © 2019 · Missourinet

Senate bill would move Missouri’s steamboat and state museums–funded by casino boat fees

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Dishes found on the wreck of the Arabia

A bill awaiting a vote in a Missouri Senate Committee would fund construction and operation of a new museum in Jefferson City all about the steamboat era in Missouri.

Bill sponsor, Sen. Mike Bernskoetter of Jefferson City, says the funds should come from fees collected from casinos for each person who boards gambling riverboats because that is where today’s gaming industry initially gained steam in Missouri. In the year 2000, state law was changed to allow gambling boats to stay docked.

The bill would increase the fee from $2.00 to $3.00, which is shared among the communities where casinos are docked, the Missouri Veterans Commission and the state.

Goods excavated from the Arabia, which hit a log and sank in 1856. The museum touts the artifacts as the largest collection of of pre-Civil War artifacts in the world

The bill would fund moving the Arabia Steamboat Museum and its contents from Kansas City to Jefferson City.

The lease runs out on the Kansas City building in 2026 and the Pittsburgh, Pa., company that built the riverboat Arabia wants the remains of the boat for display.

“I think it would be terrible to let it go to another state,” Bernskoetter says, “It’s part of our history.”

“This would be a way to keep the museum here in Missouri without costing general revenue or taxing people some other way,” he says.

Bernskoetter says the Missouri State Museum, which is inside the capitol building, could be moved and rebuilt to accommodate the steamboat facility and more.

“We’re only one of two states that have the state museum in the Capitol,” he says. “I think the state museum to display artifacts from the state of Missouri would be better suited to be outside of the Capitol and leave the Capitol more for learning about the legislative process.”

The $40 million in revenue for the Steamboat Legacy Fund would also help recover sunken steamboats along the Missouri River, he says.

“There’s the steamboat Malta up near Malta Bend, there’s 400 of them all along the length of Missouri but there’s 200 of them in the Kansas City to St. Louis region,” he says. “There’s about six of them that they would like to dig up that are from different time frames, five or six different decades.”

Bernskoetter says if the bill passes, there are plans to put the museum on former prison property on the east side of Jefferson City.

The new museum would open on the 200th anniversary of Jefferson City becoming the state capital of Missouri.

Copyright © 2019 · Missourinet

Missouri flooding update: road outage list, governor warns of water dangers

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There are 104 roads closed because of flooding. Access the entire list here. Also check the MoDOT Traveler Information Map for road closures at traveler.modot.org/map.

MoDOT continues to work with Nebraska and Iowa to provide alternate routes while major roads are closed, including I-29 near Rock Port. Northbound I-29 traffic into Iowa is being detoured at I-35 in Kansas City, where travelers will continue north on I-35 into Iowa.

From Des Moines, travelers will drive west on I-80 and continue onto I-680 to connect back with I-29 near the Council Bluffs/Omaha metro area in Iowa.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol has additional marine operations troopers and swift-water rescue equipment in northwest Missouri. The patrol conducted three swift water rescues in Holt County over the weekend and troopers are going house-to-house in Watson, Missouri, after the levee breach on the Nishnabotna River.

Rhonda Wiley, Emergency Management Coordinator for Atchison County says some people are not taking seriously the dangers of moving water. “Part of the problem is from people who are not from this area, that are rerouting through our area. Even though they have had to pass barricades, and pass detour signs. They just keep coming out to where they’re trying to find a way around to get to Nebraska, to get to Omaha.”

Governor Mike Parson urges Missourians to use caution around floodwater as Missouri River levels near cresting at major flood stage in some Missouri communities. Rain will move into the western part of the state tonight through Wednesday morning but is expected to have minimal effect on current river levels.

He cautioned that despite Missouri River crests this week, flooding will remain a hazard well into the spring because of a combination of additional melting now from the north and saturated ground.

According to a press release, the Missouri Emergency Management Agency assisted the city of St. Joseph with recruiting volunteers for sandbagging efforts with the coordination of AmeriCorps St. Louis, Missouri Adventist Community Services, Missouri Baptist Disaster Relief, and the Missouri Department of Corrections.

Inmates from the Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic & Correctional Center have been helping with sandbagging in the northeastern town of Clarksville along the Mississippi River.

In Holt County, a water treatment facility is shut down operations because of flooding. The Salvation Army has provided bottled water to the area.

The governor’s office warns that standing water can carry infectious diseases and hide other hazards, including road damage, glass, and sewage. Storm drains can create an extremely dangerous situation for anyone caught in the current. Avoid walking through floodwater and keep children from playing in it.

MO stakeholders take ‘wait and see’ approach to Kansas study of MO River diversion

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Missouri stakeholders are taking a “wait and see” attitude about the study of a proposal to funnel water from the Missouri River into western Kansas to irrigate crops and replenish the Ogallala Aquifer. The proposal is that during times of high water or flooding on the Missouri, as much as 4 million acre-feet of water could be diverted. The study is expected to begin next year and take 18 months.

A kayaker travels on the Missouri River past the State Capitol at Jefferson City.

A kayaker travels on the Missouri River past the State Capitol at Jefferson City.

Randy Asbury is the Executive Director of the Coalition to Protect the Missouri River. He says the concern among Missouri stakeholders is that once an aqueduct is built, its beneficiaries will lobby to increase when it is used and how much water it provides.

“Is this just the camel’s nose coming under the tent?” asks Asbury. “At a time when water is needed, if the infrastructure’s in place, if the aqueduct is operating, would they then want water not only in flood events but also at other times?”

He says stakeholders in Missouri have seen such escalation with other issues regarding River management. He says an example would be when the Master Manual for Management of the River was developed.

“We saw at that time that as people had opportunity to push for something for their state’s interest, many times they didn’t want what they originally requested, they wanted more.”

Asbury says 4 million acre-feet is no small amount of water.

“That amount of water, taken at an inopportune time, could be very devastating even to municipal water supplies or to electric generators in this area. They have to have water to get into their intakes.”

Asbury says while the issue is only the subject of a study, stakeholders in Missouri are watching to see what develops. He says there is a belief that the project will prove too expensive to pursue, after a 1982 study put the cost at $3.6 billion dollars at that time. That cost today could be as high as $25 billion.

The “wait and see” attitude could change quickly, however.

“I’m confident there would be many attorneys lined up by many organizations to fight this, so it’s not something that would be conceded at any point if ever there was the opportunity for this to actually take place. There would be legal challenges galore around it.”

Kansas officials are preparing for legal challenges, however. The Shawnee Dispatch in Shawnee, Kansas reports State Representative Sharon Schwartz (R-Washington) recommending, “you might want to put money in our litigation fund,” at a recent rollout for the study.

The Shawnee Dispatch also reports that Officials in Kansas view the Missouri River diversion as the best option for bolstering the Aquifer that stretches from Nebraska to Texas. A groundwater management district in Garden City, Kansas, has considered filing an appropriation for water rights from the Missouri River in anticipation of litigation.

Asked whether Missouri stakeholders should be speaking up more now, Asbury says to do so might have them getting ahead of themselves.

“I think there is adequate time here, if there is a need to oppose it, to do so.”

Governor Jay Nixon has not held back his disagreement with the proposal, however, penning a letter last week to Kansas Governor Sam Brownback urging him to scrap the plan.

Nixon urges Kansas governor to scrap study of Missouri River diversion

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Governor Jay Nixon has issued a letter to his counterpart in Kansas urging him to reconsider that state’s intention to study diverting water from the Missouri River into Kansas. Nixon tells Governor Sam Brownback the Missouri River is vital to Missouri’s way of life and economy.

A 1982 study of the plan to divert water from the Missouri River into Kansas put the cost at an estimated $3.6-billion dollars. (photo courtesy; Missouri Department of Natural Resources)

A 1982 study of the plan to divert water from the Missouri River into Kansas put the cost at an estimated $3.6-billion dollars. (photo courtesy; Missouri Department of Natural Resources)

Kansas officials are planning to move forward with a study of constructing an aqueduct to divert 4 million acre-feet of water from the River into Western Kansas to help support agriculture.

Nixon tells Brownback, “Both of our states would benefit from a more global discussion of the future use of the Missouri River,” adding, “neither of our states is well-served by the approach exemplified by this project.

See Nixon’s letter here.

Barge associations to Obama: order more water to save Mississippi River barge traffic

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Two river barge trade groups say barge traffic on the Mississippi River could come to a halt next week if someone doesn’t put more water in the River.

Waterways Council, Inc. is one of two groups that says as early as next week there won’t be enough water in the Mississippi River for the towboats that move barges to operate. It has joined the American Waterways Operators in calling on President Barack Obama to act to avoid an effective closure.

Two unions say after next week, barges on the Mississippi River will have to remain tied up until as late as April unless the Corps of Engineers releases more water into the Missouri River or the Midwest gets lots more rain.

Two unions say after next week, barges on the Mississippi River will have to remain tied up until as late as April unless the Corps of Engineers releases more water into the Missouri River or the Midwest gets lots more rain.

Waterways Council President Mike Toohey says for every 60 days barges stay off the Mississippi, 20,000 jobs and $130 million in wages are threatened and $7 billion in commodities are stranded.

“The inputs to manufacturing such a chemicals, which are a huge component of transportation on the waterways, simply don’t reach the manufacturing facilities … because there really is no other alternative to water transportation. The railroads do not have the water side deliver access that is necessary and we do not have enough trucks to take up the slack.”

Corps of Engineers spokesman Mike Petersen agrees levels are likely to get low enough to keep towboats off the River, but says the Corps can not release more water.

“The Missouri River can’t operate for the support of Mississippi River navigation just by their legal authorities, but the more important question is that if we start releasing water, we’re looking at year one of a drought. We don’t know how many years this drought is going to go on and it’s tough making decisions with water resources in a good year, but we have to keep our eyes on the long-term as far as what we’re going to do with water in any of the Corps reservoirs across the nation if we’re going to be dealing with a persistent drought.”

Toohey says the shut down could last until April unless some significant rain comes to break the drought and raise River levels.

The unions say towboats need a nine-foot draft to operate, and Toohey says very few vessels on the Mississippi can operate with anything more shallow. The unions say the River will be down to 8 feet next week.

Petersen says the Corps is already doing all it can.

“We actually just started releasing some additional water from Carlyle Lake. This would be the second kind of burst of water from Carlyle to support navigation through that reach of River at Thebes (Illinois) … that’ll reach Thebes at about the same time that the forecasts expect us to reach critically low levels.”

Petersen adds, “but ultimately … it’s going to take a whole lot of rain to get us back to normal.”

Corps: more room needed in Missouri River channel, not reservoirs, for flooding

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The Corps of Engineers has released a study that suggests more room to hold flood waters is needed along the Missouri River channel, not in its upstream reservoirs.

The Missouri River Basin (courtesy; US Army Corps of Engineers)

The study evaluated how greater storage allowances in the reservoirs would have performed in historic runoff years between 1930 and 2011. The findings say more storage would not have prevented widespread damage in the 2011 flood, or the need for record releases from those reservoirs.

Northwest Division Commander Brigadier General John McMahon says it showed that additional flood control storage, alone, is not the answer.

“We’ve got to have adequate channel capacity to accommodate whatever flow we decide to.” What that means is, “generally, it’s moving the levees further back to accommodate whatever flow you want to design an improved system to.”

General McMahon says since the 1944 Flood Control Act was written, conditions on the River have changed. “The levees that were envisioned in that original authorization, some of them were never built. In other cases, they weren’t separated by the recommended distances to accommodate 100,000 cubic feet-per-second flows. In addition to that what we have is a lot of accumulation of soil deposits in the flow way and channel degradation.”

He says increasing channel capacity does not necessarily mean taking land out of farm production. “You can still farm on the wet side of the levee when it’s not flooded there, which is most of the time. And oh, by the way, there’s always what we call ‘interior drainage,’ that is land taken out of production that’s on the dry side of the levee but because of local drainage it’s flooded and it stays flooded because there’s no accommodation for draining that field through the levee. So the notion is not it’s an either/or proposition.”

View the Corps’ study here

The Corps says the report is not intended to be a complete analysis of impacts and is not a decision document. General McMahon says, “it begins the dialogue in the Basin to help discern what we might do in the future to reduce flood risk, to increase performance of the system and its resilience, to minimize damage due to events like we endured during 2011.”

AUDIO:   Jody Farhat presents a summary of the Corps Study