Various commentators and former governors seeking elder statesman status are confusing flood control with flood elimination and blaming the Army Corps of Engineers for heavy snow and rain and houses built in a flood plain.
If you'd like something you really can blame the Corps of Engineers for, check out their plan to charge water storage fees in upper Missouri River states.
My rural water Quality on Tap newsletter (not online yet) provides the details. Up to now, rural water districts and other users have applied for easements and permits to draw water from the Missouri reservoirs. The rural water folks say the Corps began delaying new permits in spring 2010. The Corps proposes charging $20.91 per acre foot of water for users of water from Lake Sakakawea behind the Garrison Dam in North Dakota. The anticipate similar fees would hit the eleven South Dakota rural water districts that use Missouri River water. The WEB Water system in northeast South Dakota could face annual fees of $149,300.
Now I know there's no way to translate the immediate and temporary excess of water in the river to immediate household water use. But for perspective, the 150,000 cubic feet of water per second currently being released over the dams is enough water to supply the daily water needs of over 11,000 households like mine. I would think the Corps of Engineers would be happy to pay us to take some of that water off their hands.
The rural water folks frame their argument in terms of just compensation. They note that the Missouri River dams permanently flooded over a million acres of bottomlands and forced relocation of several Native American communities. The rural water systems argue that fair compensation for these losses includes the continued municipal and industrial use of this water without charge.
But just as it's easy to holler at the Corps when golfers are hip-deep in walleye in Dakota Dunes, it's easy to argue the Corps shouldn't charge us for water when there's more than we can handle roaring through the dams. The Corps provides a useful service. Monitoring and maintaining the dams and reservoirs costs money. Should the beneficiaries of that service pay fees for it?
Irrigators, engineers, water drinkers, your comments are welcome....
Our July Quality On Tap! magazine can be read here: http://view.vcab.com/?vcabid=cleSnpplScrgacj
[CAH: Thanks for that link, Ms. Okeson! You deserver a raise from the boss for paying attention to social media! :-)]
The result most amiss about the Corps charging for its services is that large irrigators will pump more pristine fossil water from aquifers rather than compel industrial ag to treat the water that they have polluted with chemicals.
The mainstem dams won't be removed until the hydropower is replaced with some other way to produce electricity and some other way to move the power. Geothermal is that way.
In fact, aquifers should be deemed public property and irrigators and Hyperion should be prohibited from pumping from them.
Like most other historians on the topic, I believe there are too many interests pulling the water. This year, the water is plentiful and can be used for anything and everything. Now if we were having this conversation lets say 5 years ago, the main argument against the Corps would be that there is not enough water in the dams. The battle cry from our government officials would be we need to hold more water in the dams and screw the barge traffic down stream. Also, five years ago a water fee would be used to make sure that we as South Dakotans did not pump the reservoirs dry. This in turn hurt many industries both up and down stream. Corps mandate is huge and it is difficult to please every interest. If people want to remove the Corps I would love to see someone actually propose a plan and instead of complaining. The last comment is not directed at you Cory, but to our elder statesmen.
Points well taken, gentlemen. I agree, TC, that the Corps has a really hard job acting as the disinterested party balancing the interests of all river users.
Larry, could we make an argument that only those immediately affected by the taking of land and flooding of pre-dam riverside towns (mostly Native Americans, right?) are entitled to the direct compensation of free water, and that we can justify charging new residents and businesses fees for it? And perhaps, just as we tell states they don't get all the water they want for their local interests (navigation or recreation), perhaps we cap withdrawals from the river for any one customer? (That's my clever way of banning Hyperion.)
And TC, could we justify varying that fee based on varying supply relative to some optimum reservoir depth defined by the ACE master manual?
Looks like the high court says no: http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/news/article_5c023786-9b66-11e0-8899-001cc4c002e0.html
From what I know Cory, the only mandate about water levels is to keep the river below Sioux City at a 9 foot navigation channel. There are optimum ranges on each dam, but nothing required by law. That is why we see the Chief of Engineers to report jail in various states across the basin.
I do like the idea of using part of the fees for compensation for Native American tribes along the Missouri. My numbers say out of the 550,000 acres 450,000 were held by Native American tribes. In official reports the Corps even acknowledged that they could not adequately compensate the loss of Native American land. So if that is where the fees are going I could dig that.