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Bank Of America Investment The National Academy of Sciences warned yesterday that the Missouri River and its ecosystem will continue to deteriorate unless its natural flow is significantly restored, calling for "immediate and decisive management actions" to shatter a 14-year political stalemate.

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Investment Opportunity The academy's report is the latest milestone in a controversy that has taken nearly as many twists as the original Big Muddy itself. The report mostly echoed long-standing proposals by environmentalists and recreational interests that the channelized river be allowed to rise and fall and meander more freely, proposals bitterly opposed by farmers and the barge industry.

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Banc Of America Investment "This report is an affirmation of everything we've been saying," said Chad Smith, Missouri River coordinator for the group American Rivers.

Protesters Restored Flow of Water On several occasions, protesters stormed the main irrigation canal, prying open its steel gate in an act of civil disobedience. When local law officers wouldn't step in, federal agents began patrolling the gates around the clock, adding to the tension. A solid winter snowfall and the prospect of more abundant water seemed to cool tempers. But the report from the National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, has fanned the debate anew heading into the spring planting season.

Banking Investment The report also argued that the Army Corps of Engineers should be released from its duty to ensure navigation along the entire 750-mile stretch of the Missouri between Sioux City, Iowa, and St. Louis, suggesting that a constant barge channel may not be justified on rarely used segments of the river.

Sandwiched between the cities of Saint Louis on the Mississippi River and Kansas City on the Missouri River, the state of Missouri lies at the crossroads of the Midwest, the South, and the Great Plains. With its mix of landscapes and geography, Missouri has many opportunities for outdoor recreation on its wide system of trails, and with campgrounds galore, Missouri is great for all kinds of travel, whether scenic driving, road biking, mountain biking, or hiking.

Investment Solution Strategic But it declined to propose any specific reaches where navigation capabilities should be phased out or any specific changes in flows. It also suggested that while the science is quite clear about how and why the river's health has deteriorated, it is uncertain how the river would respond to changing its flow.

In Wisconsin, however, where venture capital firms are all towards the end of their investment cycles, there was no significant investment activity for the third quarter. Overall, Midwestern states saw investments of $144 million, up from $119 million in the second quarter, with Minnesota and Missouri leading the way. Michigan surged to third place for the quarter driven by a single firm that raised $30 million. Overall, Minnesota, Ohio and Missouri continued to lead the region for investments in 2005.

Investment Banking Services "It's a mixed report," said Christopher Brescia, head of a Midwestern barge industry group called MARC2000. "We're glad they recognize that all the science isn't there yet. But when they talk about changing the flow and reconnecting the river to the floodplain, that could end navigation on the river."

Bank Investment In general, the report argues that taming the meandering Missouri into a straight and reliable barge channel has been awful for its fish and wildlife and has failed to produce the navigation benefits that were promised. It calls for a new "adaptive management" approach to experiment with re-creating natural flows -- more water in the spring, less in the summer -- as well as natural meandering in some portions of the river.

Alternative Investment This is one of the most furiously debated issues in the Midwest: Farmers have said that a "spring rise" might flood their fields, and barge operators have said that low summer flows would put them out of business. Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.) has championed their cause relentlessly -- usually through direct confrontations with Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) -- and then-Gov. George W. Bush pointedly announced his opposition to the spring rise during a 2000 campaign trip to Missouri. House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) has sided with Bond and Bush.

Online Investment Services The report also calls for a moratorium on revisions to the manual the Army Corps of Engineers uses to manage the river. In December 2000, after the Fish and Wildlife Service ruled that a spring rise and low summer flow was needed to avoid the extinction of endangered fish and birds, the Corps pledged to revise its manual accordingly. But in August, under Bush's administration, the Corps backed away from that commitment.

Accompany Essential Investment In recommending the moratorium, scientists on the academy's Missouri River Ecosystem Science committee said they believe the Corps can start making the river flow more naturally, and noted that the manual process has dragged on for 14 years.

Investment Company But Corps officials yesterday rejected the proposal for a moratorium, as well as the proposal for instant changes. Otherwise, they said they considered this a "good report." They said they plan to propose a new manual in May and make a final decision in October. Gen. David Fastabend, commander of the agency's northwest division, said the Corps again intends to adopt flow changes by 2003 to avoid violating the Endangered Species Act, which is what Daschle has demanded.

Investment Management Solution The report also notes that the simplification of the river has taken a toll on fishing and recreation, and that "there is a distinct prospect" that restoring natural flows would be justifiable on economic grounds alone.

Investment Management Services Still, the report floated a possible compromise: experimenting with flow changes in reaches with the least barge traffic instead of implementing a spring rise for the entire river. That could mean an extension of the status quo in Missouri, where opposition to the spring rise is the strongest.

Guide Investment Stock "The panel is really suggesting that barging cease on the Iowa and Nebraska stretch of the river, where people sight barges less often than they do Elvis," said Environmental Defense senior attorney Tim Searchinger.

Investment Manual Solution By Michael Grunwald
Washington Post - 1/10/2002

Topic: Rivers

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