What exactly is going on with the Missouri River?
The great river that does so much to define our region runs faster and straighter than it did originally, thanks largely to manmade improvements through the years, chiefly levees for flood control and channelization for barge traffic.
It took half a century – from the 1930s to the 1980s – for the federal government to build dikes and revetments and take out a lot of sandbars, islands and backwaters necessary to create a 9-foot deep, 300-foot wide channel for 732 miles, all the way from Sioux City, Iowa, to St. Louis. The river no longer meanders.
And there’s a cost. The faster-flowing river is slowly scouring the riverbed, which is progressively getting lower.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers put it this way in a report last year: “In recent years, the rate of bed degradation has increased. This is especially true in the Kansas City” area.
That’s a problem, just for starters, for those who build and maintain bridges and for industries and cities with water intake pipes in the river. At the very least, retooling for a lower riverbed is an expensive hassle.
Starting this month, the Corps of Engineers will take a closer look at the problem in the Kansas City area. Its study will take a couple of years and cost $2.8 million. Several area governments and utilities have signed on. The specific question is determining if federal actions – that is, actions by the Corps – are the cause of the problem. Establishing that legally could go a long way toward figuring out solutions and who should pay for them.
River management is a matter of balancing interests – flood control, transportation, water supplies, wildlife habitat, recreation. Improving one area often means a loss in another. The first needed step is fully acknowledging the effects of past decisions and assessing the likely costs and consequences of future policies.
