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.