New plan from the corps keeps transportation on the Missouri unreliable.

If you thought a definitive answer about future management of the Missouri River would come when the United States Corps of Engineers released its Missouri River "master plan," chances are you were wrong.

At the end of February, when the corps released the document, all factions involved pored over the contents and promptly issued statements voicing their dissatisfaction.

Upon its release, U.S. Corps of Engineers Brigadier General William Grisoli, Northwestern Division Engineer, said the master manual didn't make winners or losers out of any particular interest along the river, but rather worked toward the goals of the corps, "to improve the survival of species, provide predictability to the basin and lessen the impact of severe drought by retaining more water in the reservoirs."

The plan calls for a spring rise beginning in 2006 to aid in spawning for the pallid sturgeon, a Missouri River fish that is listed with the Endangered Species Act (ESA). It also calls for creation of 1,200 acres of new shallow-water habitat to accommodate spawning for the fish. If the 1,200 acres of habitat aren't created by July 2004, summertime flows will be reduced to 25,000 cubic feet per second (cfs), rates insufficient to provide for barge traffic.

Bruce Hanson, MFA vice president of transportation, said that even if the corps manages to find the 1,200 acres and convert it to suitable spawning ground, it will do little to bring barge traffic back to the Missouri for this season. Both major barge lines that move fertilizer and grain on the Missouri announced earlier this year that they would suspend operations for 2004 due to unreliability of water flow.

From comments by the leadership of widely diverse Missouri River users, close observers say there are winners and losers, indeed.

Upon release of the master plan documents, Missouri U.S. Senator Kit Bond said that the final action from the corps, unless it is modified, fails to protect the priorities of Missouri and other downstream states and that modifications should and would be fought for. Missouri's junior U.S. Senator, Jim Talent, agreed, pointing out that needs of downstream states and economic growth in general were being pushed out by the ESA. Missouri's Governor, Bob Holden, said his office would work with the Missouri attorney general's office to see if the corps plan could be affected by legal action.

Meanwhile, upstream, Montana U.S. Senator Max Baucus bemoaned the effects the plan will have on Fort Peck Lake, saying that the corps had draped a fancy new plan around the status quo; that the plan favored downriver barge interests. Baucus said he'd use every legislative avenue to restore "balance" to the Missouri River.

American Rivers, an environmental pressure group, said the new river plan doesn't go far enough toward protecting the river or endangered species, hinting the group would resort to legal action in the face of the new plan.

"The Army Corps has a legal obligation to prevent endangered species from going extinct and a moral responsibility to manage the Missouri River for the benefit of the public at large," said Chad Smith of American Rivers. "Today, the corps dashed our last lingering hopes that they will show leadership without an explicit court order."

The situation on the Missouri is a sign that even in a region that typically gets plenty of rainfall, water rights, when they become upstream versus downstream, are becoming more divisive. The current imbroglio is two pronged. It is partly the classic water war, in which two entities fight over when and how they get water. And it is partly the result of inflexibility delivered from the federal Endangered Species Act and environmentalists bent on seeing the ESA carried to the letter of its mandate.

Specifically at issue for grain producers and handlers in MFA's trade territory is the shortened navigation season and its effect on moving crop inputs up the river and grain shipments downstream.

Randy Asbury, executive director for the Coalition to Protect the Missouri River, based in Higbee, Mo., said that transportation depends not just on the actual, point-in-time flow of the river, but on reliability and predictability of flow.

"In 2002 and 2003, we saw transportation terminate in the middle of the season. In it was about a 40-day shut down. In 2003 we had a 3-day reduction of flow that took flows down to 21,000 cfs, which was below minimum service navigation levels. As a result of that reduction, flows didn't again reach minimum levels until Sept. 1. So there was a 22-day period in 2003 when boats couldn't float. The problem with the split navigation season is that when navigation opens on April 1, it takes a company about 3 weeks to get set up or staged on the river. And it takes about 3 weeks to stage down, to move barges off the river at the end of the season. There are costs associated with that 3 weeks each time. And when the river is too low for navigation in the summer, they've got to stage up and stage down again, because for safety reasons, they can't leave their barges moored along the river. The split season just isn't economical."

MFA's Hanson said that losing the ability to send freight on the river opens larger questions for Midwest producer and processor profitability.

"From MFA's perspective, we've got to plan how we're going to move inputs and what we'll do with crop that's coming out of the region. Last year we took a wait-and-see attitude and it hurt us. We had to make moves at the last minute that cost us more than it would have if we'd planned ahead for it. This year we're planning on it," he said.

But even with significant planning, without barges, transportation becomes more limited--depending on rail lines or trucks.

"For one thing, those methods of transportation are difficult to come by," said Hanson. "There's a rail shortage and truck shortage, so when people say there is plenty of capacity to compensate for loss of barge traffic, there really isn't."

Major railroads made record profits for the fourth quarter of 2003. Hanson said there is a simple reason--railroads follow the economy.

"And at the same time," he said, "they've been cutting cost, laying off people and deferring maintenance issues such as rail track but especially in rail cars."

With some covered hopper cars out of action because of maintenance, and fewer coming on-line because of the high cost to make them, the kind of cars needed to move grain and fertilizer are difficult to sequester. It takes about 60 trucks to equal a barge, which makes trucking uncompetitive to markets accessible by water.

Hanson said that just the option of river transport put favorable pressure on rail and truck.

"Alternate modes of transportation are what keeps railroad pricing in line. Sioux City used to be able to get favorable rates for gulf export/import because they had a river option. They call it water-compelled rates. You don't have to use it, but you've got to have the option to use it."

There was one unanimous reaction to the new plan. All sides were upset with the truncated period for public comment.

Instead of a 30-day period, comments were limited to 14 days.

Something in the air says that an issue that incubated 15 years just to hatch into such contention won't be settled after another 14 days. Stay tuned.

For more information
To learn more about the study, visit the Corps of Engineers Northwestern Division home page at http://www.nwd.usace.army.mil. Follow the "master manual" link.

Write to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at:

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Northwestern Division
Attention: Missouri River Master Manual FEIS
12565 West Center Road
Omaha, NE 68144

Find information on how to contact your U.S. congress representative at http://clerk.house.gov/members/index.html.

To reach your U.S. senator, visit http://www.senate.gov.