Wildlife Refuge Takes Down Levees

  • An aerial view of the Big Muddy Refuge. (Photo courtesy of FWS)

The federal government is in charge of building levees along the nation’s rivers,
but another agency within the government sometimes works to take them down.
Tom Weber reports on one such case where officials are working on
a long-range plan for a wildlife refuge:

Transcript

The federal government is in charge of building levees along the nation’s rivers,
but another agency within the government sometimes works to take them down.
Tom Weber reports on one such case where officials are working on
a long-range plan for a wildlife refuge:


The Big Muddy National Fish and Wildlife Refuge stretches along the floodplain
of the Missouri River between Kansas City and St. Louis. Right now, it includes
11,000 acres, but it’s a mish-mash of parcels that don’t always touch.


So officials at the refuge are starting a 3 year process to come up with a long-
range plan. They’ll only add land to the refuge when landowners want to
sell, but if they get enough of them, it might mean some levees can be taken
down.


Tim Haller is with the Fish and Wildlife Refuge:


“Some areas we have acquired a large enough area where we can allow the river to
flood into its floodplain, and that inadvertently provides a relief to adjacent
levees. That water spills out on us and not onto cropland.”


Haller, though, says no levee will ever come down if doing that would harm
farmland.


For the Environment Report, I’m Tom Weber in St. Louis.

Related Links

The Costs of Preventing Flood Damage

  • A shed in Valmeyer, Ill. shows how high the water got during the 1993 Flood. The flood waters caused such damage that most of the town moved a few miles east, high up on a bluff. A few residents and many farmers, though, stayed in the flood plain. (Photo by Tom Weber)

It’s been 13 years since the Great Flood of ’93 caused widespread destruction along the upper Mississippi River. After the flood, there was talk of needing to expand the natural floodplain by eliminating levees that protect farmland. That didn’t happen. In fact, not much of anything has happened, but that doesn’t stop farmers from wondering if the government will buy their farms and turn them into natural areas designed to take the waters of the next big flood. Tom Weber reports:

Transcript

It’s been 13 years since the Great Flood of ’93 caused widespread destruction along the
upper Mississippi Rivers. After the flood, there was talk of needing to expand the natural
flood plain by eliminating levees that protect farmland. That didn’t happen. In fact, not
much of anything has happened, but that doesn’t stop farmers from wondering if the
government will buy their farms and turn them into natural areas designed to take the
waters of the next big flood. Tom Weber reports:


For all the river talk in these parts, it’s actually kind of hard to see the water. Doug
Sondag’s farm is about about two miles from the river and his view to the west
is of the bluffs, on which Missouri towns, like Herculanium, sit.


“That’s Missouri bluffs. That’s Missouri bluffs, and to the north the bluffs that you see is Missouri.
We’re on a big bend here.”


Doug’s friend Ron Kuergeleis is visiting the farm today. Kuergeleis lost his home in the
’93 flood, but he still farms on the flood plain near Valmeyer, Illinois. The two also are
commissioners with the local levee district, which means they’re in charge of keeping the
local levee up-to-date so the river is kept away.


Today, though, they’re talking about the possibility of a new federal levee and something
called “Plan G.”


(Ron): “You’re talking quite a few farmers that would absolutely put them out of
business. You’re one of them, I’m one of them, and there’s – (Doug): “There are quite a few
more.” (Ron): “There are quite a few more.”


No one is going out of business any time soon, though. Plan G is something the Army
Corps of Engineers studied and decided wasn’t worth the money. It would have the
Corps spend billions building up bigger levees along the upper Mississippi to 500-year
levees: the highest levees the Corps builds.


Plan G also would create a huge storage district nearby. A storage district is a kind of
relief area where flood waters go to take strain off other levees. Corps engineer Richard
Astrack says design elements like these can help control flooding in other places:


“Now we have the capability that we didn’t have before to look at whole system to ensure
that actions taken at one location can impact another location.”


The Valmeyer storage district would require a new levee in the flood plain, which would
leave 10,000 acres of currently protected farmland unprotected and on the wrong side of
the levee.


This all started a few years ago, when Congress told the Corps to study the entire Upper
Mississippi River, from Illinois’s southern tip to Minnesota, find out if the current levees
are good enough to reduce flood damage. If not, should there be some comprehensive plan to guide just which levees get built up and when? Such a study actually had never been done.


The Corps’ Richard Astrack says they looked at a lot of options, including that Plan G,
to see if any of them were worth the time and money. And it turns out, none of them is:


“None of the plans passed that test. Our draft report does not
recommend any systemic plan.”


And the Corps’s final report will probably recommend essentially doing nothing because
the current system does a good enough job of preventing flood damage. The Corps will
recommend updating, but not raising, current aging levees, and also creating some mini-
levees to protect roads that approach bridges.


But even with all the assurances that Valmeyer, Illinois is safe for now, farmers in the
bottomlands are worried that the federal government might one day force their children
or their grandchildren off their farms.


Ron Kuergeleis is a fourth generation farmer:


“We’re pretty much assured in our lifetime it ain’t gonna happen. But some of us got another
generation coming up and you don’t know. He claims, you know where you going to
come up with money, but if they want to come up with it, they’ll find it.”


The worries stem from the fact that Corps cannot, in all fairness, guarantee that such a
levee would never be built. Because setting aside some of the bottom lands for natural
flooding could protect big cities such as St. Louis, Missouri and Memphis, Tennessee,
there’s concern that Congress might one day instruct the Corps of Engineers to buy out
those farms.


So, while Valmeyer is not getting a new levee right now, the people here say they’ll keep
working to stay one step ahead to make sure it never happens.


For the Environment Report, I’m Tom Weber

Related Links

Living on Top of a Fuel Pipeline

  • Shelley Miller stands by one of the markers in her backyard that shows where a pipeline is located. Miller has two pipelines in her backyard and two others just beyond her property line in the neighbor's yard. (Photo by Tom Weber)

There are thousands of miles of pipelines in the U.S. constantly shuttling gas, oil, and other fuels from state to state. And although you might not realize the pipes might be under your property, the companies that own them have to keep the land above the pipes clear in case of an emergency. And over the past year, residents in some communities have been told they need to dig up trees and remove sheds to keep the path clear. In some cases, it’s more than just an inconvenience. It’s costly. But the homeowners aren’t all mad at the pipeline companies. They’re mad at the people who built their houses. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Weber reports:

Transcript

There are thousands of miles of pipelines in the U.S., constantly shuttling gas, oil, and other fuels
from state to state. And although you might not realize the pipes might be under your property,
the companies that own them have to keep the land above the pipes clear in case of an
emergency. And over the past year, residents in some communities have been told they need to
dig up trees and remove sheds to keep the path clear. In some cases, it’s more than just an
inconvenience. It’s costly. But the homeowners aren’t all mad at the pipeline companies. They’re
mad at the people who built their houses. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Weber
reports:


Pipelines are a crucial link in the trip gasoline makes from the refinery to your car. They
crisscross the country, but most people don’t notice them.


Shelley Miller didn’t notice for years, even though she sleeps less than 30 feet from four of them
under her and her neighbors’ yard.


They carry gasoline, natural gas, heating oil and jet fuel.


In fact, more than 20-thousand gallons of fuel will race under Miller’s yard in St. Louis suburb of
St. Peters, Missouri by the time this story is over. She and her husband knew the pipes were there
when they bought the house… but they thought they were used for water or sewage.


The Millers didn’t realize they were wrong until last year… when Explorer Pipeline Company
came to make sure the land above its pipe was easily accessible.


For Miller, that meant two trees had to be removed, along with a shed that had become her
backyard’s equivalent of a kitchen junk drawer.


“We had planned to re-side our home. So we have siding we purchased one bit at a time to get to
that point. We don’t know where we’re going to put that. The lawn tractors, where we going to
put that? Where you going to move all this stuff?”


But that’s a small price to pay to make sure pipeline crews can get in fast if there’s an emergency.


Fred Low is a lawyer for Explorer Pipeline. He says companies like his have made an extra effort
in recent years to clear more urban or developed areas that have pipelines…


“In our industry, there have been some accidents in the past. There’s been national attention and
we want to do a better job. And to do a better job of running our pipeline we have to do a better
job maintaining our pipeline.”


And Miller understands that. She’s not mad at the companies because the pipelines were there
first. What upsets her is that 35 years ago, the city allowed the homes to be built so close to the
pipes.


More than 160 homes in St. Peters, Missouri have at least one pipeline in their backyard. But
Alderman Jerry Hollingsworth says it’s hard to blame the city.


“There were no guidelines for a city on how close to build a home next to a pipeline 35 years
ago. So somebody came in and said, ‘I’m going to build some houses in here’ and the city said
‘okay!'”


And many towns across the country did the same thing. Todd Swanstrom teaches Public Policy
at Saint Louis University. He says more and more suburbs might have to deal with pipelines as
they keep growing. Adding a subdivision or even a strip mall sounds nice if it adds to tax
revenue. But there’s also safety to think about…


“If there were an explosion and people lost their lives from a pipeline, I think it would be a very
different situation. As it is, it seems to be one of those issues that has largely gone under the
radar.”


But even if every growing suburb in the U.S. had rules for building on pipelines, there could still
be accidents… or deaths.


Ivel, Kentucky, San Jose, California and Whitehall, Pennsylvania are among communities where
pipelines have exploded in the past few years.


But Explorer Pipelines’ Fred Low says overall, pipeline companies have had an impressive safety
record.


“Being next to a pipeline isn’t necessarily that bad. There are literally millions of people who live
by pipelines. And we will not let structures be built on our easements, so that’s why we want to
keep them visible so we can find out if we’re being encroached upon.”


Since the St. Peters pipelines were laid in 1971, the city’s population has exploded and expanded
along the pipelines.


For Shelley Miller… her efforts now focus on raising awareness for others. She and her neighbors
have organized a group that pushes cities and towns to enact better rules for how land around the
pipes is developed, and how people are told of the lines before they buy a house.


St. Peters now has a law restricting development around pipelines. But that only does so much
for Miller as she goes to bed every night just a few feet from all that gasoline.


“When we hear a loud boom, yeah, we sit up in bed. We think about it. There’s a risk with
everything you do in life, but when you have to live with it on a 24/7 basis and you don’t know
what the next minute’s gonna bring, it stays on your mind.”


For the GLRC, I’m Tom Weber.

Related Links

Epa Rules on Meat Processing Waste

  • To go from these chickens... (photo by Romula Zanini)

The largest meat and poultry processing plants in the country must follow new rules regarding how much pollution they release into waterways. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Weber reports:

Transcript

The largest meat and poultry processing plants in the country now must follow new
rules regarding how much pollution they release into waterways. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Tom Weber reports:


The new rules apply to about 170 plants in the country that turn cows and chickens into
hamburgers or filets. Wastes will have to contain fewer nutrients like ammonia and nitrogen
before it’s released into water. Mary Smith heads a division within the Water Office of the
Environmental Protection Agency. She says the rules are not as strict as when first proposed.
That’s in part because of concerns from the industries that it would cost too much. Smith
says the limits are tougher than what the law was before. But she adds these aren’t the only
industries that release waste into the water.


“So we can’t really kind of single out the meat industry, necessarily. Everyone, in a sense,
needs to do their part. But it’s another piece of the puzzle in terms of getting cleaner water.”


The new rules mark the first time poultry plants will have these kinds of limits. The EPA
estimates meat and poultry plants use 150 billion gallons of water each year. That water needs
to be cleaned of wastes like manure, blood, and feathers before it’s discharged.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tom Weber.

Related Links

Tighter Regs on Future Ge Foods?

A recent study from a group of scientists suggests the government should keep a closer eye on genetically modified foods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Weber reports:

Transcript

A recent study from a group of scientists suggests the government
should keep a closer eye on genetically modified foods. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Weber reports:


The study is from the National Academy of Sciences. Authors found
there’s nothing inherently hazardous about the way foods are
genetically altered today.


Tim Zacharewski is with Michigan State University. He’s one of the
scientists who helped write the report. He says the report is a
response to points raised in the ongoing debate over genetically
modified foods…


“There’s growing concern within the consumer market, as well as with
trading partners, that these products may actually not be safe. At
this time there’s no evidence to support that.”


But Zacherewski says the study also notes there is a potential that
future products could be unsafe… especially as newer technology
allows more and more types of food to be altered. And the study’s
authors say that the government should focus its regulations on those
newer technologies.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tom Weber.

Related Links

Cleanup of Toxic Sites in Limbo

Monsanto has agreed to clean up one contaminated site of hundreds that need to be cleaned up. The toxic site cleanups have been in limbo because of a recent bankruptcy. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Weber explains:

Transcript

Monsanto has agreed to clean up one contaminated site of hundreds that need to be cleaned up.
The toxic site cleanups have been in limbo because of a recent bankruptcy. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Tom Weber reports:


Monsanto contaminated this one site in southern Illinois with dioxins, PCB’s and other toxic
chemicals for 40 years.


Legal questions arose because Monsanto created a company called Solutia in 1997. Solutia took
responsibility for Monsanto’s chemical clean ups. But Solutia went bankrupt last year. And it
refused to clean any of the 300 sites across the country while in bankruptcy.


Glenn Ruskin is a Solutia spokesman. He says Solutia can’t clean up the site, but Monsanto’s
decision to do so offers hope for people who live at the other sites.


“It just indicates that there are parties out there who are still in existence that are willing and able
to do that clean up.”


The matter is even more complex because much of Monsanto was bought by Pharmacia. Pfizer
then bought Pharmacia.


A bankruptcy judge will ultimately decide who has to clean which sites.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tom Weber.

Related Links

Army Corps and Enviros Spar Over River Levels

Court battles over the Missouri River have subsided… for now. The debate has focused on whether the Corps of Engineers should drop water levels to protect endangered species… or keep a normal flow to ensure barges would be able to ship cargo. In the end… levels went down… but not for nearly as long as courts had ordered. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Weber reports… this summer’s fight might just be the first battle in a war over the river’s management:

Transcript

Court battles over the Missouri River have subsided… for now. The debate has focused on
whether the Corps of Engineers should drop water levels to protect endangered species… or keep
a normal flow to ensure barges would be able to ship cargo. In the end, levels went down, but not
for nearly as long as courts had ordered. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Weber
reports, this summer’s fight might just be the first battle in a war over the river’s management:


On paper, the Corps of Engineers lowered the Missouri River this summer because of three
things: The piping plover and the least turn, two birds hat nest on sandbars, and the pallid
sturgeon, a fish that lays eggs in the shallow water.


Lawsuits by environmental groups like Chad Smith’s argued having too much water flowing in
the summertime disrupts and essentially washes away those nesting areas.


But Smith, who’s with the group, American Rivers, says the issue is much larger than two birds
and a fish…


“What we’re trying to do is to restore some semblance of the river’s natural flow, along with a lot
of habitat and try to make the Missouri River look and act more like a river. Right now it’s
managed like a ditch and it looks like a ditch.”


Smith says years of management by the Corps of Engineers – building dams and levees and
controlling river flows – have made river depths fairly consistent. But he says, really, that’s just
not how rivers work.


“You would have snow melt and rain coming into the river in the springtime, increasing the
flows, and then throughout the rest of the year, particularly during the hot summer months, the
levels would be very much lower, and that’s the kind of natural dynamic that fish and wildlife
adapted to.”


And so when a federal judge in Minnesota told the Corps of Engineers to lower water levels on
the Missouri, it was an attempt to get the river back to its natural ebb and flow. The court order
was for a four-week drop in levels, but the Corps only lowered the water for three days towards
the end of the endangered species’ nesting periods.


But even those three days upset business interests along the river, particularly the barge industry.
Towboats can be seen pushing barges up and down the Missouri River between Sioux City Iowa
and St. Louis. A group of politicians and business leaders, in fact, recently met at the Gateway
Arch in St. Louis to criticize the judge’s order. It’s actually the Mississippi River that passes in
front of the Arch, but because the Missouri spills into the Mississippi just north of St. Louis, the
group noted that lowering one would lower the other. And Missouri Senator Jim
Talent says that has a negative effect on jobs and the local economy.


“When that river goes down the barges can’t move. We’re inhibiting barge traffic already and if
this continues it’s going to stop. And we really need to step back from the brink of an action that’s
really just unreasonable and being forced on us by an extreme interpretation of the law by the
courts.”


Congresswoman JoAnn Emerson, whose district borders the Mississippi, wonders why the
Endangered Species Act that essentially won the lawsuit to lower levels is of higher importance
than people’s livelihoods.


“My mandate in Congress is from the people up and down the Mississippi River, people from my
Congressional district. My mandate isn’t from the piping plover or the least tern or the pallid
sturgeon.”


The debate over the Missouri River might have been moot if not for one other factor: A drought
has plagued parts of the Midwest for more than a year and made the rivers even lower.


A few days after the group met at the Arch, the Mississippi River got too shallow for any barge
traffic and closed for a weekend. Having cargo just sitting there, not getting to market, cost the
economy a million dollars a day by some estimates.


Barge groups blamed the lowering of the Missouri; environmental groups blamed the drought.
Barge traffic is moving again and the nesting season is over for the endangered species named in
the lawsuit. But the fight is far from over as both sides appear ready for another round. Once
again, Chad Smith with American Rivers.


“We’re prepared to stay in court for as long as it takes if the Corps is going to continue to be
obstinate about this. The Corps is now on notice through the court actions this summer that these
things are serious and they can’t hide from them.”


For its part, the Corps has said it will work with other government agencies, namely the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service, to come up with a plan for managing the river for both wildlife and the
barges in time for next year. But it has said that before, and the two sides seem just as
far apart as they’ve ever been.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tom Weber.

Related Links

Army Corps to Lower River Levels

The Corps of Engineers will soon lower water on the Missouri River… a month after it was first ordered by a judge to do so. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Weber reports:

Transcript

The Corps of Engineers will soon lower water on the Missouri River… a
month after it was first ordered by a judge to do so. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Tom Weber reports:


The Corps is only going to keep the river levels down for three days. A
federal judge in Washington had ordered the reduction to protect nesting
endangered species… but the Corps said that would conflict with another
ruling from Nebraska that said water must be high enough for barges.


Those lawsuits were all combined and sent to a court in Minnesota… where
judge Paul Magnuson ruled the two orders were not in conflict. He says that
means the order to lower levels still applies.


Barge companies were told to secure vessels because the river will likely be
too shallow for navigation during the three days. The corps had risked
being fined a half-million dollars a day for being in contempt of the
ruling… but Judge Magnuson says he won’t enforce those fines at this time.


Environmental groups say it might be too late for the species… but it’s
better than nothing.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tom Weber.

Related Links

Legal Wrangling Over River Levels Continues

The fight between environmental and business interests on the Missouri River has created legal wrangling in two federal courts. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Weber reports:

Transcript

The fight between environmental and business interests on the Missouri
River
has created legal wrangling in two federal courts. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s
Tom Weber reports:


The controversy started when a federal judge in Washington recently
ordered
the U.S. Corps of Engineers to lower water levels on the Missouri
river.
That move would protect endangered birds and fish that risked losing
their
nests with the higher water levels.


The Corps told the judge, though, it intended to ignore that ruling
because of a
previous ruling in a Nebraska court. That ruling said water levels
should
be high enough to keep barge traffic moving on the lower Missouri.


The Washington judge scolded the Corps for refusing her order and ruled
the
agency in contempt. The Corps in turn asked the Nebraska judge to
modify
her ruling to allow it to avoid heavy fines for being in contempt.


But Wednesday… the Nebraska judge refused. The Corps is appealing
her
ruling.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tom Weber.

Erosion in the Gulf Blamed on Midwest

Scientists say part of the problem with erosion along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico begins in the Midwest. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Weber reports:

Transcript

Scientists say part of the problem with erosion along the coast of the
Gulf
of Mexico begins in the Midwest. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Tom Weber reports:


In a recent report… the U.S. Geological Survey says Louisiana’s
coastline
is disappearing faster than first thought. By the year 2050… one-third
of the state’s current coastline could be gone.


Restoration depends a lot on sediments. As they flow south… they’re
diverted to build new land along the coast. But the USGS’ Jimmy
Johnston
says the locks and dams along the Missouri… upper Mississippi… and
Ohio
Rivers trap much of that sediment…


“They have had numbers as high as 67% of the sediments that come
down the
river are being diverted or meeting these locks and dams. If you have
less
sediments there’ll be less sediments to build land.”


Johnston adds more study is needed to know just how much locks and
dams in
the Midwest affect Louisiana’s coast. For the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium, I’m Tom Weber.