Editorial: No Water Wars: A Wish Surely To Fail

With Christmas upon us this publication date and New Year’s soon to follow, we can wish for anything but an end to the Missouri River water wars. None of us will live to see that happen. As the Bismarck Tribune ended its December 15 story about the Red River Valley Water Supply Project, “The harsh truth is that the Missouri River cannot satisfy every demand by every user.”

That is such a simple truth yet so difficult for many to accept. We’d better get used to it. Even if Mother Nature releases her grip (drought) on the Missouri River basin—and that seems not to be in the immediate offing—demands will still outstrip supply.

Bill Beacom, a Sioux City, Iowa, river captain and avid Missouri River researcher, told us that on December 15 the mountain snowpack above Fort Peck was 83 percent and from Fort Peck to Garrison 77 percent. Last year at this time the snowpack was 105 percent and 97 percent respectively. There is no snow pack on the plains this year, nor was there last year. We had hoped something miraculous would come from the huge storms being reported in the Pacific Northwest, but he said none of the snow got far enough east to be of help.

So unpromising is the river’s near future (at least at the moment) that there is a possibility that there will be no navigation season in 2008. The Columbia Missourian, on December 7, quoted the Missouri Department of Natural Resources as saying, “If the drought continues, as projections are right now—depending how severe the drought is—in 2008 the reservoirs could get to a point where we wouldn’t have any navigation support at all.” Mike Wells, DNR deputy director and chief of water resources, said, “Rather than just shortening it, they wouldn’t even try to have a navigation season in order to conserve water.”

Trying to fill the demands of all water users even during the best of times, history shows, gets to be a problem because when there is no water shortage to complain about, users at various locations along the upper river complain about the timing of releases that seem not to fit perfectly with their tourist or fishing seasons. Or others complain about the wildlife habitat or lack thereof. Water levels that are ideal for northern pike are not ideal for walleyed pike, which like deeper and colder water.

There is no question that manmade changes to the Missouri River have resulted in changes over the years that some have not liked; but those changes were made to satisfy increasing demands of another kind. Paul Johnston, a spokesman for the Northwestern Engineer Division, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that “there is no question that the Missouri River has changed over the past 200 years. It is narrower and shorter than it once was, and some of the habitat next to the river has been transformed into some of the richest farmland on the planet.”

Early on, rising water would spread out over the floodplains. Washington University researchers say that water levels are far more variable today in the narrower, channelized lower Missouri River.

The truth is that as Midwest populations grew, their demands grew and those who had the power to bring about change modified the Missouri River to meet those demands. Flood control projects were solid investments.

Prior to the Indian wars in the mid-1800s, railroads could not expand west of St. Louis, so the Missouri served as a major highway for transporting trappers, settlers, soldiers and their supplies. The late Dorothy Heckmann Shrader wrote a complete trilogy about three generations of family life and steamboating on the Missouri and Gasconade rivers. During those days, water transport played an increasingly important role in the westward expansion. When the Indians were no longer a danger, the railroads spread west, resulting in death to the Missouri River steamboat industry. But what would the people of those days have done without the river?

Ohio River-trained Capt. Grant Marsh, who became one of the greatest Missouri River captains ever, could never have taken federal troops into Yellowstone country and returned with the Far West and survivors from the Custer battlefield encounters. Westward expansion would have been severely delayed.

There are forces today that believe towboating on the Missouri is all but dead or should be. And there are proponents who believe otherwise. One should listen to river leaders who say quality of cargo, not quantity, should be considered. Those who no longer can receive fertilizer by barge are now encountering a considerable increase in transportation costs.

While it is true that people change over time, perhaps it is the need to meet certain demands that brings about this change. Occasionally the demands of environmentalists and their supposed concern for endangered species outshine the demand for river transportation, and transporters would appear to have lost a round. But the courts have supported the Corps’ operating plan for a reason, and transportation on the lower is still at the top of the list.

If the Missouri River is in a transition period, the final chapter is yet to come. Somewhat more alarming to us is the failure of Congress to pass the Water Resources Development Act when the time was ripe. The Missouri, the Mississippi and tributaries all are parts of the overall resources development program that has paid rich dividends over a lot of years.

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