Editorial: When Opinions Differ, What’s One To Do?

Last week we discussed the matter of crucial data unknown or ignored. Today we focus on factual material upon which differences of opinion exist.

In the matter of water resource development, projects frequently have three separate positions—the proponent’s, the opponent’s and, hopefully but not always unrelated, what is best for the public. Most of the time both proponents and critics say they want what is best for the public. Consider:

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has constructed three horseshoe-shaped chevrons in the Mississippi River at St. Louis. The purpose is to divert water to the center of the river, thus deepening the channel for barges and other industrial traffic.

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “Mainstream scientific and engineering research, some of it stretching back more than a century, documents that navigational structures in the Mississippi and Missouri rivers have increased flood levels significantly.” The Post article cites specific reports that critics say support that contention. Critics cited say “the chevrons…slow down water during a flood and push the flood stage higher than it would be otherwise.” One must assume they are rejecting chevrons in order to better serve the public.

Corps spokesman Rob Davinroy, chief of river engineering for the St. Louis Engineer District, told the newspaper that the structures do not increase flooding but actually help the river carry more water by making the channel deeper. The Corps claims the St. Louis project will save millions of dollars in dredging costs and create improved fish habitat. In other words, the Corps is convinced that the building of the chevrons best serves the public.

What kind of Pandora’s Box have we here? Corps experience over many decades must hold water (no pun intended). On the other hand, the ranks of the critics are expansive and include studies funded by the National Science Foundation. The critics are numerous and their findings (at least by laymen) are not usually taken lightly.

Not being scientific minded, we can only observe the skirmish. However, as we continue the discussion, we must also point out another possibility.

Critics of commercial navigation on the Missouri River say the river is dying. Their focus in recent decades has been on water releases from main stem dams, particularly during periods of drought when the limited availability of water has forced upper river stakeholders to go without or get by with less.

If we choose to ignore this phenomenon, we are merely burying our heads in the sand. It will not go away. Most of the major problems in the world today can be attributed to the earth’s growing population.

The Missouri is no longer just a wild river meandering through unsettled, desolate western lands inhabited only by Native Americans. The areas within the river’s reach have become populated and put to a variety of uses, many requiring the use of water.

These upper river developments, which must sacrifice water when releases are scheduled to improve navigation, have ripened into vast money-making machines called tourism, agriculture, sports fishing, increased community consumption, and maybe even some manufacturing (though little). This development translates into billions of dollars and feeds the economy of the region.

We have experienced eight years now, during which rainfall and snowmelt have been inadequate to keep those six main stem reservoirs at desirable levels. Little by little, as the drought has dragged on, tempers of stakeholders have grown short. They wonder why river transportation should play such a major role in their demise. Most probably understand flood control and the need for it. But time and again they have complained that the financial benefit of development on the Upper is far more important than what they say is reduced financial benefit from operating barges on the Missouri. There is major disagreement over that conclusion.

In keeping with their contentions, they have petitioned, (according to law and with the Corps guidance) for a study of the 1944 Flood Control Act to determine if Missouri River operations are still best serving the needs of river stakeholders. If we agree with a philosophy that mandates reassessing goals periodically to see if change is needed, can we argue against it? Or is it another way to micro-manage the Corps?

Time and Mother Nature will team up to tell us who is right about the chevrons. As for the Missouri, we can foresee another huge donnybrook brewing. Environmental critics have tried to get the barge industry off the Missouri for decades. Many don’t like to see it even on the Upper Mississippi. Are they trying to set up an end run?

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