(January 20, 2006) Local interests are battling over a proposal to restore seasonal flows to the floodplain of the much-dammed and ecologically imperilled Missouri River. Is there a lesson here for the builders of the Three Gorges dam?

South Sioux City, Nebraska: Scientists know what is ailing the great rivers of America. They also know how to cure it. From the Columbia in the Northwest to the Everglades in Florida, they have been empowered by federal and state governments to take control of ecologically imperiled rivers that have been harnessed for decades to stop floods, irrigate farms and generate power. Instead of demolishing dams, they are using them to manipulate river flows in a way that mimics the seasonal heartbeat of a natural waterway. Scientists have discovered that a spring rise and summer ebb can give endangered fish, birds and vegetation a chance to survive in a mechanized river. So far, though, their knowledge has done nothing to alter the flow of water in the Missouri River basin, explored by Lewis and Clark in 1804 and home to 10 million people spread from northern Montana to eastern Missouri. Here, along America’s longest river, the politics of regional self-interest have paralyzed change. By the end of this month, the Army Corps of Engineers will decide whether to alter flows in the Missouri. But no matter what the corps decides, there will be challenges in the courts and a long-running battle will continue in Congress among influential lawmakers representing far ends of the 2,341-mile-long river. In Congressional disputes over the Missouri, parochialism almost always trumps party loyalty and political ideology. “It seems like everybody’s narrow little interest is all they care about,” said Jeanne Heuser of the United States Geological Survey, who helped organize a river science conference here this spring on the banks of the Missouri. The hundreds of biologists, hydrologists and other river experts who assembled here in April agreed that the scientific debate about how best to rescue the Missouri had been over for years ‚Äî and the restoration of seasonal river flows had won.

The New York Times, January 20, 2006