Disclaimer: I have been studying the damming of the Missouri River now for about four years. My M.A. thesis has primarily been about the South Dakota's role in damming Missouri River from 1915 to 1950. That is the perspective that I bring to this article.
As I was reading Mount Blogmore blog posting today. It brought to mind some interesting points think about this situation such as; are where does the water go from the Missouri, why were the dams built in the first place, and would the flooding be even worse without the current infrastructure? I hope to answer these questions below.
Where does all the water go? All the water from the Missouri travels to the Mississippi River. Right now the Mississippi is at record stages any more water now or earlier would have increased the flooding on the Mississippi, and the Corps are using plans and safeguards developed after the 1927 to combat that flood. You can wish that they did something, but suffering was either going to be felt here or down river. I believe that the Corps were trying to ease pain down river, and did not intentionally do this.
This flood reminds me of the flood of 1943 and 1952. The prevailing wisdom at that time was to build high head dams to serve multiple purposes such as; flood control, irrigation, navigation, and hydroelectric power. The damages caused by the 1943 and 1952 floods inundated the same area with about 4 feet of water before the dams. Corps of Engineers officials had testified in Congress and had made statements that flood of 1952 would have been prevented with the high head dams. The Oahe dam is a high head dam.
Which brings me to my final point. The Missouri is meandering river. It moves around and is fairly uncontrollable and the flooding would have been worse without the current infrastructure. If you want to put the blame on Corps for the possible flooding of Pierre and Ft. Pierre, we also have to blame ourselves for some of the decisions we have made as South Dakotans.
To conclude the blog post my thoughts are with the people of Pierre and Ft. Pierre and wish them luck on their struggle.
