| Missouri
River plan submitted by corps Restoring wildlife habitat would be costly. |
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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has asked the corps to include a spring rise and a split navigation season on the river below Gavins Point, in its river operations to help, the pallid sturgeon, an endangered species. Downstream river users are opposing the spring rise, since it would keep farm fields from draining in the spring, destroy the Missouri River barge navigation industry and reduce access to cabins and marinas The Army Corps of Engineers has estimated that restoring more wildlife habitat along the Missouri River rather than increasing the river's spring flows downstream could cost more than $700 million. The Corps and certain conservation interests in various states have agreed that the habitat-restoration work, involving 118,650 acres over 35 years, would be the best way to help the river's endangered birds and fish. Environmental groups and biologists argue that Missouri River habitat improvements alone won't do the job. They say fish need the signal provided by a spring rise on the whole lower river in order to reproduce. The Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to lay out in draft form later this month just what steps it thinks are needed to help endangered species along the river. The corps in March put on hold a revision of its operating plan to await the Fish and Wildlife's requirements. |