Missouri River Called Most Endangered

April 11, 2001

A group called American Rivers says the Missouri River is the nation's most endangered. Several Missouri River species face extinction unless the Army Corps of Engineers changes dam operations to provide more natural water flows and dramatically accelerates efforts to restore habitat, according to an AR report.

American Rivers along with environmental, outdoor recreation, and taxpayer groups announced their annual list of the nation's most endangered rivers, ranking the Missouri first in the nation among rivers facing the most immediate, serious environmental degradation this year. This is the seventh straight year the Missouri River has been on the list.

The groups pointed to dam operations they say are pushing several river wildlife species to the brink of extinction for the sake of a "small trickle" of barge traffic. American Rivers and its local partners called on the Corps to modify the operations of those dams to include modestly higher water levels in the spring and lower levels in the summer as recommended recently by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and opposed by several farm organizations.

"The Corps continues to run the Missouri River to benefit a handful of barges," said American Rivers' President Rebecca Wodder. "It is time to prevent species extinction, tap the Missouri's great economic potential for recreation and tourism, and meet the modern needs of riverside communities."

As the nation's longest river, the "Big Muddy" makes its 2,500-mile journey from western Montana to the Mississippi River just north of St. Louis. Historically, the seasonal rise and fall of water levels defined life along the Missouri. Snow melt and rain increased water levels in the spring, building sandbars and causing fish like the pallid sturgeon to begin spawning. In the summer, the waters receded, exposing sandbars where birds like the federally endangered interior least tern and the federally threatened piping plover made their nests. These low flows were also critical for young sturgeon and other fish, which depend on easy access to shallow, slower-flowing water.

"The free-flowing segments of the Missouri River need to be managed more naturally," said Jim Heisinger, president of South Dakota's Living River Group of the Sierra Club. "That's obviously what fish and wildlife need, and it also turns out that is what will benefit the people of this basin the most."

Today, the Corps operates the Missouri's six big dams in Montana and the Dakotas to provide steady flow almost year-round for just a handful of barges on the lower river. These dam operations prevent water levels from rising naturally each spring and falling each summer, creating river conditions that have proved particularly difficult for the pallid sturgeon, least tern, and piping plover. Since 1990, scientists have recorded only two instances of natural reproduction by pallid sturgeon in the Missouri River, the river groups say..

They cite figures from USDA and the Corps showing Missouri River barges carry only 0.3% of all the grain harvested each year in Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri, and produce just $6.9 million in annual economic benefits. The Corps estimates that on average, the 735 channelized miles of the lower Missouri River hold only one barge tow per day, particularly during the little-used summer months.

Last November the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released its "final biological opinion" on the operation of the Missouri River's main-stem dams, determining that the interior least tern, piping plover, and pallid sturgeon are likely to become extinct along the Missouri River without a change in the way the Corps operates the dams. Among other measures, the service proposed increasing flows from Gavins Point Dam in South Dakota in the spring when water conditions permit, and reducing flows each summer to provide a semblance of the natural rise and fall of water levels.

The groups are urging the Corps to adopt those recommendations in its forthcoming revision of the Missouri River Master Water Control Manual ("master manual"), the guidebook used by the federal river manager to set dam operations. Studies indicate that revising dam operations in this manner would not impact other contemporary uses of the river and its flood plain. Increasing spring releases would not flood low-lying farmland, according to Corps studies. Barge navigation would continue during the spring and fall, when more than 80% of farm-related cargo is shipped on the Missouri. Dam reforms on the Missouri would send more water downstream to the Mississippi River when barge traffic on that river is heaviest, they claim.

They further argue that recreating the spring rise not only would make the river more hospitable to its wildlife, it would also make the river a more attractive place to visit and recreate -- stimulating the economies of towns along the river. Already, boating, fishing, hunting, camping, hiking, bird watching, and other forms of recreation generate nearly $90 million in economic activity in riverside communities each year.

In the Dakotas and Montana, marinas and other businesses would benefit from higher water levels in reservoirs during the summer, they say, and in the lower basin, reduced summer flows would mean slower, shallower water and exposed sandbars, attracting increased numbers of anglers, canoeists, and campers. An estimated ten million visitors are expected to visit the river to commemorate the upcoming bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1904.