Thursday, June 30, 2011
News Flash Federal Judge in Sioux Falls, SD Grants Injunction
Today before the July 1st deadline for South Dakota new Abortion laws to go into affect a judge in Sioux Falls has granted an injunction. The judge made her ruling at 5 p.m. CST today. The brief is about 60 pages long. For more information go to the www.argusleader.com or www.keloland.com. More to come on this story.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Conservatives Blame that the Corps Intentionally Caused the Problem
It had been recently posted from the blog American Thinker that the Corps was warned about the high water levels and did nothing about it. The funny thing is the information was not sent ,to Corps, but to the American Water Works Association (AWWA) a non governmental organisation with no connection with the Corps. Brad Lawrence South Dakota WARN chair quoted in the Capital Journal, said,
Meaning he did not send the information to the Corps.The Corps did not receive his information or concerns Which means it did not get sent to the District Office in Omaha for Corps planners follow up Lawrence's concerns. Did the Corps probably know that it was going to flood yes, but people have to remember that the Corps have to take care of the entire basin. This is why they did not have a Spring Pulse. A Spring Pulse is done to mimic Spring flooding to help jump start the wildlife to go through their Spring routine. The Corps did not have that this year due to the excess of water downstream and the threat of flooding.
The key question of the argument is was the flooding in Dakota Dunes, Ft. Pierre, and Pierre preventable. Yes, the flood was entirely preventable in South Dakota. The catch is that it would have taken out Eppley Field in Omaha, part of the Industrial district in Kansas City, parts of St. Louis, and would have flooded the already damaged city of New Orleans. Which would have had a greater impact on the national economy. What was done a cost benefit analysis.
If you look at what the Conservative blogs cite as their source for their argument, comes from e-mails sent to the AWWA on February 3rd 2011. If my memory serves me correctly there was ice still on the main stem reservoirs. So the release of water then would have created ice jams, ice jams are dams created by ice when water pushes ice into a dam like structure example would be Vermillion 1881 flood. This would have caused flooding in South Dakota
Another point they forget is the Missouri flows into the Mississippi. Tributaries on the Mississippi usually flood before the snow pack on the Missouri River tributaries can melt. So in March lets say, when maybe ice was gone not to cause damage with the release of water we could have lowered the reservoirs. The problem with that is that they would have had to contend with the run off from the Ohio River and Tennessee River and it would have overloaded the system then.
The dams did their jobs they held off the water so people could evacuate and build levees. There were no deaths due to the flooding, and farmers did not loose massive amounts of livestock. The Missouri River is not a easily controllable river and the Corps are doing the best they can. If any of you readers have ideas please please post them and let's discuss them.
P.S. Dr. Schneiders is blogging about this topic also. You and find his postings on http://ecointheknow.com/news/. If your in the Sioux City area on Sunday the 26th of June Dr. Schneiders will be giving a lecture hosted by the Betty Strong Encounter Center, the presentation is titled, “The Last Great Deluge: Siouxland, the Missouri River and the Epic Flood of 1952.
"although he did not send that information to the Corps, he finds it "hard to believe that it wouldn’t have gotten passed on to the Corps."
Meaning he did not send the information to the Corps.The Corps did not receive his information or concerns Which means it did not get sent to the District Office in Omaha for Corps planners follow up Lawrence's concerns. Did the Corps probably know that it was going to flood yes, but people have to remember that the Corps have to take care of the entire basin. This is why they did not have a Spring Pulse. A Spring Pulse is done to mimic Spring flooding to help jump start the wildlife to go through their Spring routine. The Corps did not have that this year due to the excess of water downstream and the threat of flooding.
The key question of the argument is was the flooding in Dakota Dunes, Ft. Pierre, and Pierre preventable. Yes, the flood was entirely preventable in South Dakota. The catch is that it would have taken out Eppley Field in Omaha, part of the Industrial district in Kansas City, parts of St. Louis, and would have flooded the already damaged city of New Orleans. Which would have had a greater impact on the national economy. What was done a cost benefit analysis.
If you look at what the Conservative blogs cite as their source for their argument, comes from e-mails sent to the AWWA on February 3rd 2011. If my memory serves me correctly there was ice still on the main stem reservoirs. So the release of water then would have created ice jams, ice jams are dams created by ice when water pushes ice into a dam like structure example would be Vermillion 1881 flood. This would have caused flooding in South Dakota
Another point they forget is the Missouri flows into the Mississippi. Tributaries on the Mississippi usually flood before the snow pack on the Missouri River tributaries can melt. So in March lets say, when maybe ice was gone not to cause damage with the release of water we could have lowered the reservoirs. The problem with that is that they would have had to contend with the run off from the Ohio River and Tennessee River and it would have overloaded the system then.
The dams did their jobs they held off the water so people could evacuate and build levees. There were no deaths due to the flooding, and farmers did not loose massive amounts of livestock. The Missouri River is not a easily controllable river and the Corps are doing the best they can. If any of you readers have ideas please please post them and let's discuss them.
P.S. Dr. Schneiders is blogging about this topic also. You and find his postings on http://ecointheknow.com/news/. If your in the Sioux City area on Sunday the 26th of June Dr. Schneiders will be giving a lecture hosted by the Betty Strong Encounter Center, the presentation is titled, “The Last Great Deluge: Siouxland, the Missouri River and the Epic Flood of 1952.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Summer Reading List for the People of the Missouri River
Summer is a time to catch up on reading that has been put off, and with the interest in the high water on the Missouri River I have some reading recommendations for people that are interested in the current flooding of the Missouri River. These books are long and comprehensive, but of a high academic quality.
Through my studying of the Pick-Sloan Plan two books I would recommend if you want a comprehensive history on the dams and the Corps are The History of Large Federal Dams: Planning, Design, and Construction in the Era of Big Dams, and Big Dam Era. Chapter 6 (p235-292) in Large Federal dams covers the Missouri River the building of the structures and the Pick-Sloan Plan. Big Dam Era covers the Missouri River from the implementation of the Pick-Sloan Plan to the 1990s. This book is about 200 pages. Granted both are written by the Corps, but they good comprehensive background histories. Luckily, they are now online in PDF format and the full text can be accessed on-line which is better than writing the Corps for a copy or trying to find them in a library.
If political history is more of your thing then I would suggest; Dammed Indians Revisited by Michael Lawson, Unruly River by Robert Kelly Schneiders, Cadillac Desert by Mark Reisner(Chapter 6 p170-213), and River of Promise River of Peril by John Thorson. It is alot of reading, but they are interesting books to give a perpective of the Corps, Janklow, South Dakota, and politics surrounding the dams. Finally, if your interested in the legislation of the Pick-Sloan Plan I would recommend The Missouri Basin's Pick-Sloan Plan A Case Study in Congressional Policy Determination by Marian E Ridgeway. In my opinion the best book that describes the legislative process of the Pick-Sloan Plan without reading thousands of pages of Congressional documents.
Summer reading List
The History of Large Federal Dams: Planning, Design, and Construction in the Era of Big Dams, and Big Dam Era.
Big Dam Era
Dammed Indians Revisited
Unruly River
Cadillac Desert
River of Promise River of Peril
The Missouri Basin's Pick-Sloan Plan A Case Study in Congressional Policy Determination
I know these are huge books and more time is required then the average reader might want to put in, but these are the best. So these are my recommendations for summer reading. Please leave comments on what you think or other good books or articles on the topic. If you read or had read any of these works feel free to comment on them.
Through my studying of the Pick-Sloan Plan two books I would recommend if you want a comprehensive history on the dams and the Corps are The History of Large Federal Dams: Planning, Design, and Construction in the Era of Big Dams, and Big Dam Era. Chapter 6 (p235-292) in Large Federal dams covers the Missouri River the building of the structures and the Pick-Sloan Plan. Big Dam Era covers the Missouri River from the implementation of the Pick-Sloan Plan to the 1990s. This book is about 200 pages. Granted both are written by the Corps, but they good comprehensive background histories. Luckily, they are now online in PDF format and the full text can be accessed on-line which is better than writing the Corps for a copy or trying to find them in a library.
If political history is more of your thing then I would suggest; Dammed Indians Revisited by Michael Lawson, Unruly River by Robert Kelly Schneiders, Cadillac Desert by Mark Reisner(Chapter 6 p170-213), and River of Promise River of Peril by John Thorson. It is alot of reading, but they are interesting books to give a perpective of the Corps, Janklow, South Dakota, and politics surrounding the dams. Finally, if your interested in the legislation of the Pick-Sloan Plan I would recommend The Missouri Basin's Pick-Sloan Plan A Case Study in Congressional Policy Determination by Marian E Ridgeway. In my opinion the best book that describes the legislative process of the Pick-Sloan Plan without reading thousands of pages of Congressional documents.
Summer reading List
The History of Large Federal Dams: Planning, Design, and Construction in the Era of Big Dams, and Big Dam Era.
Big Dam Era
Dammed Indians Revisited
Unruly River
Cadillac Desert
River of Promise River of Peril
The Missouri Basin's Pick-Sloan Plan A Case Study in Congressional Policy Determination
I know these are huge books and more time is required then the average reader might want to put in, but these are the best. So these are my recommendations for summer reading. Please leave comments on what you think or other good books or articles on the topic. If you read or had read any of these works feel free to comment on them.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Monday, June 6, 2011
Former Governor Rounds Tries to Blame the Corps for Mismanagement
Sunday Rapid City Journal reporter Kevin Woster interviewed former South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds about the flooding in Pierre. Rounds according to the Woster article Rounds put the blame of the flooding on the water mismanagement of the Corps of Engineers, and stated to Woster that he thought living by a flood preventing structure like the Oahe dam protected his property. With the high run off on the Mississippi and the Missouri it seems that flood waters will flood some areas of Pierre and Ft. Pierre. Rounds comments seems like political pandering instead of anger and frustration.
The dams did their job by preventing the floods. They were never designed to protect land. No structure provides 100% protection. The Corps knew that they were going to have higher than normal precipitation in the basin, but not this high. The Blog the Interested Party had reported on this as early as January, and the Corps mentioned it in a article in Yankton Press and Dakotan February.
My sympathy does go out to the families who are hurting because of this flood, but the reality is preventative measures could have been taken by these residents or land owners. If people wanted to protect their investment from flooding, the mechanism available to them was Federal Flood Insurance. People like M. Rounds who now complains that the Corps had failed to do their job by not protecting his property on the flood plain need to look back less than sixty years ago at the 1952 flood. If they would have looked at what flooded back then they would have known that they had a possible risk of flooding. Blaming the Corps now because he did not take the correct precautions is not the Corps fault. Does Rounds have an alternative to the Corps?
Two popular alternatives to the Corps and the dams are the Missouri Valley Authority (MVA) or get rid of the dams. The MVA was supposed to mimic the Tennessee Valley Authority. During the creation of the Pick-Sloan Plan part of the Flood Control Act this idea was brought up by President Roosevelt other regional supporters like the Farmers Union. The MVA would work like the TVA. The MVA failed because the states did not want a bureaucratic body appointed by the Executive branch to regulate the water. The states through the Missouri River States Committee (MRSC), a group of the 10 basin governors and a state representatives, decided to side with the Corps and the Bureau of Reclamation. The MRSC believed that the plan would go through Congress with little changes, and the states at that time had a good working relationship with the Corps.
The other option would be to get rid of the dams an idea posed by Dr. Robert Kelly Schienders and Stephen Ambrose. If this option happened people living along the river would have to move to higher ground or risk yearly flooding. The river would be less static and more difficult for barge transportation in the South and recreational purposes in the North. Both regions economies would be affected greatly by this decision.
If people knew these options, we could have an honest discussion instead of the yearly blame the Corps. This flood is probably a once and a lifetime occurrence hopefully, but we need to have adult conversations for anything to be fixed. Rounds complaints sound like political positioning instead of anger or frustration.
The dams did their job by preventing the floods. They were never designed to protect land. No structure provides 100% protection. The Corps knew that they were going to have higher than normal precipitation in the basin, but not this high. The Blog the Interested Party had reported on this as early as January, and the Corps mentioned it in a article in Yankton Press and Dakotan February.
My sympathy does go out to the families who are hurting because of this flood, but the reality is preventative measures could have been taken by these residents or land owners. If people wanted to protect their investment from flooding, the mechanism available to them was Federal Flood Insurance. People like M. Rounds who now complains that the Corps had failed to do their job by not protecting his property on the flood plain need to look back less than sixty years ago at the 1952 flood. If they would have looked at what flooded back then they would have known that they had a possible risk of flooding. Blaming the Corps now because he did not take the correct precautions is not the Corps fault. Does Rounds have an alternative to the Corps?
Two popular alternatives to the Corps and the dams are the Missouri Valley Authority (MVA) or get rid of the dams. The MVA was supposed to mimic the Tennessee Valley Authority. During the creation of the Pick-Sloan Plan part of the Flood Control Act this idea was brought up by President Roosevelt other regional supporters like the Farmers Union. The MVA would work like the TVA. The MVA failed because the states did not want a bureaucratic body appointed by the Executive branch to regulate the water. The states through the Missouri River States Committee (MRSC), a group of the 10 basin governors and a state representatives, decided to side with the Corps and the Bureau of Reclamation. The MRSC believed that the plan would go through Congress with little changes, and the states at that time had a good working relationship with the Corps.
The other option would be to get rid of the dams an idea posed by Dr. Robert Kelly Schienders and Stephen Ambrose. If this option happened people living along the river would have to move to higher ground or risk yearly flooding. The river would be less static and more difficult for barge transportation in the South and recreational purposes in the North. Both regions economies would be affected greatly by this decision.
If people knew these options, we could have an honest discussion instead of the yearly blame the Corps. This flood is probably a once and a lifetime occurrence hopefully, but we need to have adult conversations for anything to be fixed. Rounds complaints sound like political positioning instead of anger or frustration.
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