Editorial: Big Muddy Study Is ‘Dorgan’s Folly’

As if the Missouri River has not been the heart of enough controversy over the past three decades, and despite the fact that in 2004 (after 12 years of study and the expenditure of $35 million) the revised Master Manual for the Missouri River was completed, powerful Senate leader Byron Dorgan of North Dakota has proposed a new and controversial study of the Missouri River basin’s water resources.

Sen. Dorgan, a member of several committees with responsibilities related to water project funding and chairman of the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations subcommittee, got $25 million appropriated for the study as part of the 2010 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill (WJ, August 24). Due to widespread opposition to the appropriation and widely held opinion that spending money for another study of this kind would be pure foolishness, we will label the measure “Dorgan’s Folly.”

According to Jim Mitis, under certain conditions the Missouri can contribute up to 80 percent of the middle Mississippi’s volume. Mitis, a spokesman for Missouri Rep. Todd Akin, called the study “a thinly disguised salvo to eliminate navigation on the Missouri.” Randy Asbury, a member of the Missouri River Recovery Implementation Committee and executive director of the Coalition to Protect the Missouri River, has said, “The outcome of this study could influence Mississippi River navigation for the next 50 years.”

Most of these arguments have been heard before, but so volatile is the issue that when the Mississippi River Commission met aboard the mv. Mississippi in St. Louis on August 14, the meeting was dominated by complaints related to Dorgan’s controversial study proposal. (The WJ’s August 24 issue cites in detail the complaints and who voiced them. And there were many.) There have been, also, formal requests to have Dorgan’s measure removed from the appropriations bill.

Dorgan’s goal is to have the 1944 Flood Control Act (also known as the Pick-Sloan Act) reviewed in order to seek changes in Missouri River policy. Courts have held, generally, that navigation is one of the essential purposes of the Pick/Sloan Act. While there is little danger that the “flood control” listing as number one on the list is vulnerable, Dorgan would like to see navigation pushed off the map, replacing it with a high-ranking spot for the preservation of more water upstream for recreational interests.

While development of main stem reservoirs on the Missouri may have helped upriver stakeholders, the water that empties into the Mississippi from the Missouri contributes heavily to the economic well being of the entire nation. In a letter to the WJ on July 20, Capt. Bill Beacom of Sioux City, Iowa, tells us that the Pick/Sloan Act is a two-edged sword. “While most believe that laws written as a result of the Pick/Sloan plan, which has protected navigation for over half a century, was our biggest ally, what they didn’t recognize was that it was also our biggest enemy. When we were challenged over the economic benefits of Missouri River navigation verses upstream recreation, navigators could not bring into the argument the economic benefits of Mississippi River navigation because the laws created by Pick/Sloan expressly excluded it.”

Not helpful, of course, was a U.S. Government Accountability Office study issued in January that said most of the remaining Missouri River shipments were mainly “sand and gravel and less than 10 miles in length.” Dorgan, who commissioned the tailor-made report, argues that barge shipments on the Big Muddy are virtually defunct. Mike Wells, deputy director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, speaking for Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, called the January report “error riddled” and “illogical.” American Waterways Operator Senior Vice President Lynn Muench, speaking aboard the mv. Mississippi, said impounding more Missouri River water upstream could “cripple the economy of Middle America.”

Beacom’s believes that if the proposed Congressional Section 108 study is completed, “it will become obvious the upper basin’s recreation economic benefits will pale in comparison to the total economic benefits affecting the entire Mississippi River basin.”

That the Corps has not been allowed to include Mississippi River benefits in their Missouri River evaluations has galled river industry leaders for decades. Navigation was put at a distinct disadvantage, when it should have had the edge. As for river traffic being defunct, Beacom wrote, “…we currently have boats safely making regular runs with grain barges, petroleum barges, chemical barges, and all manner of flat decks.” He believes that with the drought finally over, “Opportunity awaits, and the infrastructure on the Missouri River is in place to welcome new business.”

The North Dakota Senator’s proposed Section 108 study is “Dorgan’s Folly”. Dorgan’s attempt to destroy river navigation will serve only to garner him support among upper Missouri River stakeholders. But should narrow regional interests be allowed to trump national economic well being?

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