Re: NANFA-- Missouri River Debate

Jane Knaub (hjknaub_at_netrax.net)
Sun, 01 Oct 2000 11:55:22 -0400

Henry,

I also heard that show. It really was your classic debate between gov't
conservationists and landowners/users on the other side. Nobody was willing to
give an inch and nothing was really gained. The debate is that the FWS wants the
river levels to more closely follow historic river levels in order to protect the
native species in the Missouri River. They want to enable natural reproduction of
these species.

But, the barge people don't want the water levels lowered in July and August,
because they won't be able to use the river, even though the barges just sit tied
to the docks all summer until the harvests start in September.

And the farmers don't want the water levels up in the spring, because one big rain
could flood their most productive farmland, the bottomland. I'm not at all
unsensitive to the plight of the farmer, having grown up as a farmboy myself, but
noone mentioned that the reason that the bottomland is so productive is because of
historic flooding,

Henry Deford wrote:

> Hello fellow NANFA members,
>
> I was in the car on Friday (yesterday) and was switching through the
> programmed dials on the radio and landed on JHU National Public Radio. There
> was a very interesting Debate on the Missouri River and how the public
> thought about it and how the government was dealing with it. They were
> talking about how Missouri doesn't want to share the river with the other
> states that the river runs through. They brought up the Pallid Sturgeon and
> how it was surviving in the river. Did anyone else happen to catch this
> debate and can give all of us a better summary? I had to get out of the car
> and go to my destination so I only heard about 20 minutes of it.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Henry Deford
> Owings Mills, MD
>
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/ For more information about NANFA, visit our web page, http://www.nanfa.org