In 2009, Congress passed the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009, Title 1, Section 108, which directed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to study Missouri River projects in the Missouri River basin to review the original purposes for structures and projects in the basin, including several dams and reservoirs, as authorized in the Flood Control Act of 1944. The Corps is to provide Congress advice on whether the original purposes for the projects are still viable, and whether new ones should be added and/or existing ones deleted. The Missouri River Authorized Purposes Study ("MRAPS") is currently underway, with tribal and focus group meetings already having taken place in Kansas City, Bismarck, St. Louis, and Omaha. Additional meetings are scheduled for Pierre, Billings, and Columbia, MO. See more about MRAPS here.
The Yankton Press & Dakotan reports here on the impact of the study in the local region.
In 2005, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit issued its opinion in In re Operation of Missouri River System Litigation, 421 F.3d 618 (8th Cir. 2005), a case involving the claims of competing interests, including several states, environmental groups, and navigation interests, as to the intended uses and therefore proper operation of the Missouri River mainstem projects under the Flood Control Act of 1944. Read the opinion here.
No doubt, the study currently underway opens the door to Congress eventually altering the intended uses of the Missouri River and its structures, and thus its regulation. Protection of endangered species such as the least tern, piping plover, and pallid sturgeon are leading environmental concerns. Barge and other navigation interests have sought to preserve flow levels in the river to maintain their industries. States with fisheries in northern reservoirs on the main stem have resisted releases from dams that reduce the amount of cold water needed for those operations and threaten the economic benefit from them. Power generating facilities have an interest in maintaining flows in the river high enough to maintain the cooling capacity needed for power plants. Likewise, municipal systems that take water from the river have an interest in maintaining flows to avoid having to alter their intakes to accommodate falling levels. The MRAPS process is only the start of what will prove to be the next front in what has in the past been a battle between these and other competing interests for use of the water in the Missouri River.
The dams and reservoirs on the main stem are Fort Peck Dam and Fort Peck Lake (Montana), Garrison Dam and Lake Sakakawea (North Dakota), Oahe Dam and Lake Oahe (South Dakota), Big Bend Dam and Lake Sharpe (South Dakota), Fort Randall Dam and Lake Francis Case (South Dakota), and Gavins Point Dam and Lewis and Clark Lake (South Dakota).
