By
Mo. River
wjs
Over 67 years ago the lower Mo. River that passes through Iowa & Nebraska was struck by the 1st Army Corps of Engineers Navigational Barge Dredge bucket in what many call the Flood Control Act of 1944. It was a futuristic plan that some had hoped would tame and industrialize the lower Mo. River as they had done on the Big Mississippi River. This plan sought to bring the navigational barge industry into the bread basket of North America. This failed plan is costing U.S. tax payers more than millions of tax dollars every year and contributing to one of the largest systematic collapses of our natural resources in North America.
Will you HELP ME is the question?
Many news paper articles, GAO reports ( Government Accountability Office ) from 1994 to 2006 , and economic studies have been done over that past 12 to 18 years that prove Industrial Navigation on the Mo. River itself is a failed industry ,but yet your congressmen and women keep poring millions of tax payer dollars into an industry on the Mo. River that is nothing more than another tax payer funded Solyndra. Such studies from leading transportation AG economist and professor Dr. Dale Michael Babcock of Kansas State University,counter parts, Ag economist Dr. Dale Anderson, University of NE, Dr. Philip Baumel of Iowa State ( 1999) If that isn't enough a article by Kansas City Business Journal Staff Writer: Krista Klaus, dated October 3,2010 further exposes the navigational industry on the Mo. River as a failed industry that by continued dreams and hopes maintains it's ability to dip into tax payers federal pocket books. Why wouldn't the navigational industry of the Mo. River seek to maintain it's ability to funnel millions of federal tax payer dollars into a vision that was crafted in 1944. Here we are folks 67 years later and your still funding a Mo. River Navigational Industry dream that simply has not materialized. I couldn't make this up if I tried. Another article in the Bismarck Tribune by Lauren Donovan dated Jan 16, 2009 gives even more insight to the failed industry and who keeps dishing our your tax payer dollars to the Army Corps of Engineers to maintain the failed Navigational Industry of the Mo. River. Here is a quote from Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., chairman of the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee at the time "This report is jaw-dropping." this was his reference to the 1994 to 2006 GAO report on Mo. River Navigation.
On the average the Army Corps of Engineers spend 6.5 million tax payer dollars a year for the maintenance,management and operation of the lower Mo. River Navigational channel. Over the course of 67 years that amounts to about 435.5 million tax payer dollars and we are not even talking about the hundreds of millions spent in it's construction. On the average the Navigational Industry of the Mo. River generates 3 million dollars a year. Ninety five percent of that is in the state of Mo., three percent to the state of Nebraska and two percent of that to the state of Iowa. That alone tells us as tax payers that the Navigational Industry of the Mo. River is costing tax payers annually 3.5 million in the hole! Now 3.5 million dollars a year for 67 years has put us tax payers on the hook for the tune of 234.5 million dollars. It has literally been a TARP bailout every year for 67 years but the cost just doesn't stop there. As the Army Corps of Engineers built and dredged the navigational channel of the lower Mo. River ,they put in Navigational channel revetments that forces the river current to sweep the navigational channel clean and allowed sediment to build up and become trapped behind them filling in much of the meandering Mo. River itself.
This action cut off many of the Mo. Rivers bends and curves ox-bows, backwaters, sloughs and flood plain wetlands making them land locked. To further along this failed vision of 1944 Mo. River Navigation ,they removed roughly about 200 miles of the Mo. River from Sioux City Iowa to the mouth in Saint Louis Mo. further narrowing the Mo River channel. With this action came the cataclysmic force and power of continued channel degradation with every Northern Great Plains spring snow melt and every mid summer snow melt from the mountains of Montana that scourers the Mo. River channel even deeper. This escalated the speed of degradation not only of the river itself but native flood plain habitats, starved old river ox-bows depriving them of the number 1 source of all life, Water. One must read the 2009 Missouri River Bed Degradation Reconnaissance Study pages 2 to page 5 to get a clear picture of just how cataclysmic the Mo. River Navigational channel has been.
Will you HELP ME is the Question?
The navigation industry of the Mo. River has continuously claimed that without navigation on the Mo. River farmers of the lower Mo. River basin would have to pay higher rail rates and that by keeping navigation on the Mo. River it forces the rail road to be competitive with other potential modes of transportation. The Ag industry in the lower basin also contends that Navigation must be maintained on the Mo. River as a means to keep transport rail rates low as well. Middle Mississippi River Navigation contends that any disruption or changes made to the Mo. River would have negative economic impacts to the barge industry along the lower Mississippi River from Saint Louis Mo. to Cario Illinois.
In conclusion the navigational industry of the Mo. River is one of the largest tax payer subsidized Solyndras of North America. Every year is a Federal bailout TARP year to which the Mo. River navigation industry by the appropriation and action of your congressmen and women allow the failed industry a hand into your pocket ,why at the same time increasing the financial burdens unto the tax payer to absorb the damage caused by Mo. River channel degradation to key infrastructure and systematic collapse of the natural resources with in North Americas longest river.
Lewis and Clark would be ashamed to see what the river is today, I truly believe they would. They could only wonder why the people have left me to such a state. A National Travesty I am, by the very hands of those who guide my Fate.
Tell your congressmen & women to stop spending money to repair,maintain the operation of the Mo. River Navigational channel. Tell your congressmen & women to reinstate and fully fund MRAPS { Missouri River Authorized Purposes Study } & MRERP { Missouri River Ecosystem Restoration Plan } In 8 years there has been but 1 navigational industry barge dock in Sioux City Iowa. 6.5 million dollars a year to maintain this navigational channel x 8 years = 52 million dollars for 1 barge and some claim a MRAPS study is a waste of tax payer dollars. You be the judge.
Will You Help Me!
Sincerely,
The Mo. River
wjs
