2011 looking to be "one of the wettest on record"

Originally published in the St. Joseph News-Press on April 26, 2011
Click here for original link. 
By Marshall White

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has changed its cautiously optimistic February forecast.

“2011 is lining up to be one of the wettest years on record,” said Jody Farhat, chief of the Missouri River water basin management.

Despite the fact all of last year’s 9.1 million acre feet of floodwaters were evacuated from the dams, the corps already has 8 million acre feet stored from the 2011 plains’ snowpack. And the mountain snowpack is 130 percent of normal and still rising, Mrs. Farhat said.

Missouri River Flooding Reports from the Web

Published April 25, 2011.

blogmaster's note: Here's several links related to current flooding on the lower Missouri River (below Gavin's Point Dam). I'll keep posting stories here for several days as things develop. Luckily, the Missouri River so far has not been hit nearly as hard as the Upper Mississippi, but the potential for flooding exists if there is a lot of rainfall in the basin below Gavin's Point Dam. For now the highest levels are in the Omaha to St. Joseph reach of the river.

First, though, is a link to a couple useful resources from the National Weather Service.
Missouri River Advanced Hydrological Predictions page (select the gages you want to see on the left, select the information you want from that gage on the river, then click "Make My River Page" at the bottom):
http://water.weather.gov//ahps2/glance.php?wfo=eax&gage=kcdm7&riverid=203276&view=1,1,1,1,1,1

Here' is their map overview of the Missouri River Basin, just another way to access the above information:
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/mbrfc/?n=RFC_observed

News Stories:
Missouri River Flooding Threatens Iowa and Nebraska - Action 3 News - Omaha (April 24, 2011):
http://www.action3news.com/story/14505545/missouri-river-threatens-iowa-and-nebraska

Missouri River Running High: Plattsmouth Project Delayed - Channel 6 WOWT - Omaha (April 19, 2011):
http://www.wowt.com/news/headlines/Missouri_River_Running_120198854.html?ref=854

Corps of Engineers Bumps Up Missouri River Releases Because of Runoff - Sioux City Journal (April 21, 2011):
http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/news/state-and-regional/iowa/article_e4ac6b98-6c35-11e0-afbe-001cc4c002e0.html

Missouri River On the Rise - St. Joseph News-Press (April 22, 2011):
http://www.newspressnow.com/localnews/27644555/detail.html

St. Joseph Tent City Closing

Officials assisting residents with finding new housing

Blogmaster's Note - At Missouri River Relief's 2010 river clean-up in St. Joseph, we delivered a bunch of trash bags to the extremely nice folks living at St. Joseph's Tent City, right on the banks of the river by the old railroad bridge. They filled those bags with trash and asked for more. This is another bit of sad news.

Originally published by St. Joseph News-Press on March 26, 2011
Click here for original link
by Kim Norvell

Kenneth Paxton, who has lived on the river adjacent to Tent City for more than a year, was busy cleaning up some of the trash left in another encampment Friday afternoon. Mr. Paxton will soon be leaving his own tent as have all but two other Tent City residents. The Social Security Administration will pay for a motel room, Mr. Paxton says, until permanent housing can be found.

The official answer as to who owns the territory inhabited by homeless men and women remains unclear. However, the process of finding permanent housing for Tent City residents has been expedited, because the Union Pacific railroad believes the land belongs to them.

Stemming the Overflow

"Recent equipment failure puts spotlight on St. Joseph’s problematic sewers"
Originally published on March 19, 2011 in the St. Joseph News-Press
by Clinton Thomas
Click here for original link

Most people prefer not to think about the labyrinth of sewer lines running beneath their home.

When those lines bring a nine-figure bill to the doorstep of customers, the system become too big to ignore.

St. Joseph voters will decide April 5 on a bond issue that could reduce projected costs over the next 20 years. Though sewer customers will pay for the bonds, all St. Joseph voters can weigh in on the issue because residents with septic systems within the city limits are allowed convert to the sewer system if they wish — and if they can afford it.

A recent pump station breakdown drew public attention to the system when it caused more than a million gallons of partially treated wastewater to flow into the Missouri River. Though the equipment failure was rare, sewage flowing untreated into the river is anything but. Just look at the numbers. In 2010, St. Joseph’s combined sewer overflow system carried untreated sewage mixed with stormwater into the Missouri River on 198 separate days. The 2009 tally was 117 days, with 160 in 2008 and 73 in 2007.

1 Million Gallon Wastewater Release in St. Joseph

blogmaster's note: Another sewage spill in St. Joseph, this time partially treated. These large spills due to equipment malfunction are what makes the news, but in many communities along the river (including St. Joseph, Kansas City, Omaha, others) raw sewage is released everytime it rains. This is due to Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) in which old sewer systems mix stormwater and wastewater when it rains. Wastewater treatment plants are unable to handle the increased load and often end up redirecting flow straight into tributaries or the Missouri River.


A lot of work in these communities is going on upgrading their wastewater systems. St. Joseph is one of these.

The article below was originally published in the St. Joseph News-Press on March 14.
Click here for original link. 

A pump failure late Friday night contributed to the release of an estimated 1.2 million gallons of partially treated wastewater from St. Joseph’s wastewater treatment system.

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources said Monday that the release was combined with increased stormwater runoff. City officials notified the department early Saturday, reporting that a pump in a pump station between the primary and secondary treatment facilities malfunctioned a day earlier. The malfunction allowed the partially treated wastewater to overflow to the Missouri River.

Since the wastewater was already partially treated — and because of the increase of stormwater contributing to the overflow — the release is not expected to affect drinking water systems down river, according to officials.

The department considers discharges of wastewater from sanitary sewer collection systems to be potential threats to public health and the environment. Sanitary sewer overflows can be caused by mechanical failure, obstructions in sewer lines, infiltrations of rainwater and snow melt into aging systems, or undersized systems that cannot compensate for sudden increases in wastewater.

The department said it requires Missouri communities to take appropriate action to eliminate their sanitary sewer overflow issues.