Agreement seeks to balance Missouri River wildlife management with water quality needs

(this article was published in the Jan. 15 edition of the Missouri News Horizon. Here's the direct link, which includes a video interview with US EPA Region 7 Administrator Karl Brooks: http://monewshorizonblog.org/2011/01/agreement-seeks-to-balance-missouri-river-wildlife-management-with-water-quality-needs/)

January 15, 2011 by Rebecca Townsend  
Missouri News Horizon

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Efforts to build habitat for the endangered pallid sturgeon also add to the nutrient load of the Missouri River, feeding the hypoxic area known as the dead-zone in the Gulf of Mexico.

In examining the challenge of having to comply with the potentially conflicting mandates of the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act, officials from four federal agencies came to an agreement, finalized Tuesday, to monitor all Army Corps of Engineers-constructed shallow water habitats to demonstrate the costs and benefits of the projects on both water quality and fish populations. Using scientific guidance from a recent National Academy of Sciences report on sediment management in the river, agency officials hope to establish a science-based blueprint from which employees can bolster endangered species populations without negative effects on water quality.

“It’s clear to everybody…we need to know more about what kind of sediment is going in the river on these construction projects, and then what the consequences are for both fish health and water health,” said Karl Brooks, region seven administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Officials joining Brooks in signing the new blueprint plan include regional officials from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the National Park Service.

Some criticism has been levied at the Corps for projects that contribute what the NAS estimated to be 6 to12 percent of the river’s phosphorus load, and to water quality regulators for “shocking inequalities” in the enforcement of the Clean Water Act.

Attorney and former Missouri Clean Water Commission chair Kristin Perry is perhaps the most vocal of these critics. Among a litany of complaints she noted a November Clean Water Commission meeting, Perry stressed that quantitative nutrient standards are applied to private industry, but not to the Corps projects.

She offered the case of one of her clients, SSS Inc., a Pike County-based quarry and barge operation, which received an enforcement order from the EPA for violating quantitative nutrient standards.  At the same time her client received the enforcement order and the notice to expect fines, his quarry was busy filling a fill dirt order, which he was told was being dumped in the river for a Corps construction project.

“How ironic that at the same time we’re going through this (enforcement violation for sediment runoff and associated nutrients), they (the Corps) called looking for dirt?” asked SSS Inc.’s Mike Stevenson, who attended the commission meeting with Perry.

Brooks said he expects debate to continue over the health and management of the Missouri River, but is optimistic about the significance of the blueprint agreement signed by the multiple agencies.

“Sediment projects for fish habitat will be done in a more systematic way, following the science from the National Academies report,” Brooks said. “And we’ll have monitoring in place to see “Ok, are the fish benefiting? Are we getting the most so-called bang for the buck in terms of fish survivability? What happens to water quality downstream? How does that affect our responsibilities to keep the Missouri River clean? Also how does it affect sediment further on down at the mouth of the Mississippi?”

The agreement, he said, allows agencies for the first time to first time to pursue habitat-building projects “in a way that makes the river healthy and doesn’t cause sediment pollution problems.”

The NAS report highlighted the complexity of sediment management. On the one hand, the nutrients it carries contributes to hypoxia. On the other hand, the report authors suggest that the river’s sediment load is down by 50 percent over the last 100 years, which they link to loss of habitat. The authors also note the role of sedimentation in supporting strong coastal wetlands along the Gulf. Healthy wetlands can help coastal communities mitigate the flooding effects associated with hurricanes.

Brooks also noted that shallow water habitats may increase river predictability by “doing with construction techniques what you used to do by just moving the water level up and down.”

But the engineering changes associated with the channels are also the cause of consternation. Reduced water velocity and load in the main channel around the chutes means that a six-tow barge must now break in an area where a habitat project affects the flow around a tight curve in the river. Breaking the barge causes delay and additional costs that AGRIServices of Brunswick pegs at $10,000 per six-barge tow. Landowners around some levies have also expressed concern that flow from certain channels may be undercutting their flood protection.

All of this underscores Brooks’s contention that the debate over river management will never be resolved.

“I do not predict an end to all fighting about the Missouri,” Brooks said. “Everybody agrees that the river is crucial; everyone agrees that the river supports life all the way through the state of Missouri; everybody agrees we should try to take care of that important river.

“The matter of how to do it? We’ll have different opinions as long as there are people living along the Missouri.”