By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Attempting to manage the unruly Missouri River has always been
a tall task.
The Army Corps of Engineers has been listening to local input
as it begins to draft a proposal to manage the lower Missouri River in an
effort to reduce flood risks.
Program Manager Colleen Roberts with the Corps says this study
will seek to improve the resiliency of the lower Missouri River.
“It came about when the four states came together after the
2019 flood event,” Roberts tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post.
Roberts says the input from Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and
Iowa has proven invaluable as the Corps examines the Missouri River as a whole.
“Typically, our studies are just really site specific with a
local sponsor,” Roberts says. “Whereas for this one we’ve come together with
all four states to look at the river as an entire system which is really unique.”
The study is officially called the, “Lower Missouri Flood Risk
and Resiliency Study.”
Public hearings have been held up and down the river, from
Sioux City, Iowa to St. Louis. Roberts says the input will be used as the Corps
works over the next year to draft the study.
Roberts characterizes this latest, systematic study of the
lower Missouri River as an attempt to create a road map to make the river more
resilient.
“Not something that we’re going to be able to implement
overnight,” according to Roberts. “We need our other stakeholders and other state,
local, federal partners to be able to implement it and it’s more the long-term
implementations, that’s 10-to-50 years, what can we do to really improve the
lower Missouri River?”
Roberts says the Corps began this effort after officials from
Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa complained about Corps management
practices in wake of 2019 flood. Roberts cautions this latest, river-wide study
will take time to draft and even more time to implement.
“We meet monthly with those state partners and give study updates
and see where we want to head together as a group,” Roberts says. “We’ve done
in-person meetings. We’ve been doing all these public outreach events in all
the different states and the state partners have been really involved with
that. I think working on those relationships is really going to be beneficial
down the road as well.”
Roberts says the Corps will take the rest of this year and all
of next to complete the study.
Click HERE for more on the study.
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