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

Originally published in the St. Joseph News-Press on April 26, 2011
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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.



The corps ran out of storage capacity fast, said Tom Waters, president of the Missouri Levee and Drainage District Association. Changing the storage capacity for floodwater isn’t under consideration at this time. Mrs. Farhat wants to evacuate water from the dams as soon as possible.

“We could be in real trouble,” said Mr. Waters, who farms east of Kansas City. “Worse than last year.”

The corps’ current plan is to increase Gavins Point releases, from 42,500 cubic feet per second today to 45,000 cubic feet per second on Thursday.

With the Missouri River water level rising again to 17.5 feet at St. Joseph, it’s having an impact on local farmers.

Gravity drains don’t work when the river is this high, and a levee district can’t discharge water into the Missouri River unless the water level is below 13 feet, said Lanny Frakes, a local farmer and vice president of the state levee and drainage association. “Diesel fuel already is $1 a gallon higher than last year, and we can’t pump all spring and summer. That’s pretty discouraging,” he said.

That means a lot of prime bottomland won’t be farmed, and that’s disheartening, Mr. Frakes said. There is a large expense to putting a crop in, and if you don’t have many bushels to sell, it doesn’t matter how high the bushel price rises, he said.

The corps will hold its high discharge rate until it re-examines the monthly runoff forecast and reviews other studies Monday and Tuesday. River watchers are expecting increased discharges.

“Our current estimate is that we will need to be on a 50,000 to 60,000 cubic feet per second release from now through December to evacuate all the stored floodwater,” Mrs. Farhat said.

The corps anticipates that Missouri River tributaries below Gavins Point will begin dropping off, so the additional flow won’t have a negative impact, said Kevin Grode, reservoir regulation team leader.

“Unless it’s a very odd year, we’re going to have some thunderstorms, and on rare occasions I’ve seen the Missouri rise 10 feet in 36 hours from thunderstorm runoff,” Mr. Frakes said. If the river is already at 16 or 17 feet when that happens, you’re in a flood situation, he added.