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Environmentalist wackos strike again
Great, after we start to come out of tough economic times the Feds decide to slam the farmers, shippers and anyone who eats in this counry.....but hey the animals will benefit 
"WASHINGTON – In a surprising setback to farmers and barge shippers along the lower Missouri River, government biologists on Thursday affirmed the need for more shallow waters to ensure survival of the endangered pallid sturgeon.
The Interior Department's Fish and Wildlife Service said that beginning next July, flows should be no greater than 25,000 cubic feet a second from the Gavins Point Dam on the South Dakota-Nebraska border.
That level would be too shallow for grain-laden barges carrying multimillion-dollar cargo toward the Mississippi River at St. Louis. Because barges need flows of about 28,500 cubic feet a second to maintain a consistent depth for operating, the industry says low flows would halt traffic along the river in Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri.
The biological opinion represents the agency's final word on what should be done to trigger spawning and maintain a survivable habitat for young sturgeon.
The full impact of the findings was not immediately clear. But the Army Corps of Engineers has said it will use them to update river operations that have been virtually unchanged for more than four decades.
"The corps' actions continue to appreciably reduce the likelihood of both survival and recovery of the species, thus jeopardizing the continued existence of the pallid sturgeon in the wild," the Fish and Wildlife Service said.
In 2000, the agency said the sturgeon as well as two bird species, the endangered interior least tern and the threatened piping plover, could survive only if waterflow were changed to mimic conditions before the Missouri was dammed and channeled.
Those conditions included a spring rise in the river from the snow melt to trigger spawning and a lower level in the summer establishing a suitable habitat for young sturgeon."
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Environmentalist wackos strike again
We should all flush our toilets 3 times as often in protest and in an effort to help raise the river water level.  Seriously, Scott, I am for preserving our natural resources & wildlife as much as the next guy but common sense MUST prevail. The government has a lop sided view of ecology with the "ivory towered ph.d. idiots" they hire to conduct these studies and rarely is there any balance to the study. In the long run and real world this usually ends up harming the wildlife they are trying to save as land owners and those effected by these ridiculous so called "conservation measures" are now crushed with tremendous incentive to kill or "eliminate" the endangered species in question. Like the old saying goes, "the best way to solve a problem is not to have one". I don't think the river level being lowered will fly. Should be interesting to see though.
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Environmentalist wackos strike again
Something similar has been happening here in the West, except it concerns drinking water. A liberal court allowed drinking water that the City of Albuquerque bought and channeled to the Rio Grande River from the other side of the Continental Divide to be used to support some little fish called the Silvery Minnow. The Rio Grande is not all that grand, and you can walk across it in many places.
This was fought in court, because if the PURCHASED water was cut off, then the habitat would also be destroyed because of the western drought. So, the court felt that it was OK for ABQ to pay for and not use water so that the minnow could survive a natural cycle of drought.
Some action was taken by the US Congress to correct this problem. The final solution seems to be somewhat of a compromise that seems OK on its surface. They will create habitat upstream of ABQ by creating a very shallow wide area in the river that the minnows can use. From what I can tell, it will be too shallow for any boat. But the water will continue to flow downstream to serve the city water supply. The only loss is from more evaporation in the shallow stream area.
I grew up in Missouri and I know that river. Certainly a solution could be to have shallow plains for the sturgeon and still keep a narrower channel for barge traffic. I may be getting cynical, but I think that this is often about control of resources (political power) and has little to do with endangered species as the law was intended.
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Environmentalist wackos strike again
I spent most of last summer in St. Louis as part of homeland defense monitoring barge traffic on all the inland rivers and even with the wet winter and spring, the Missouri River was already low and had many area's were it was just a long wide mud bank running 100's of yards parallel to the river. I am no engineer, but from the appearence of the river in the area I was at, it would seem to make more sense to actually raise it from its current level in order flood these areas and provide the conditions the fish need. Oh wait, what am I thinking that would make sense.
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Environmentalist wackos strike again
If you guys want another web site to go to for environmental issues along with other conservative type discussions, try www.freerepublic.com. From a lot of the posts here, it seems like tractors and logical thinking go hand in hand.
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Environmentalist wackos strike again
AC5ZO:
I think you hit the nail on the head when talking about the political power thing. It is a form of job security. They do a 5 year study and say do this, then they hire workers and contractors to do what is necessary. Then complete another 5 year study and realize no of the stuff they did should have been done, then hire workers and contractors to reverse it. And the cycle continues!!!!
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Environmentalist wackos strike again
I am sure we all would like to save as many species as possible, but Chief is right, we need some sort of balance. Everytime they find some semi-endangered animal anywhere, civilization is put on hold in that area.
The environmentalist go out and "find" one endangered critter and then the proposed building is forbidden. More than one person has suggested that some of the "finds" were arranged. "Oh' look, a red lipped-green eared bog turtle, the housing must not be built!
In a town near me, rattlesnakes are engangered and people are forbidden from building fences that touch the ground because they stop the rattlers from roaming freely. That's great if YOUR kids are in the yard???????
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Environmentalist wackos strike again
Rattlesnakes are endangered in my yard, but for a totally different reason. They are just not a very durable animal.
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Environmentalist wackos strike again
Here in Michigan most of us have been asking where the water in the Great Lakes is going too. I heard we are diverting water from Lake Michigan into the Mississipi River to keep the Barges afloat. I'm glad to hear this may stop. The courts shut down "Ice Mountain" just recently here in our state. They had the capacity of bottling 750,000 gallons of water a day but were only doing 250,000 per day for years. The locals on the West side of the state were having a problem with low ground water levels. The big stink was we lost a few more jobs. What's a few more jobs. We've almost totally lost our manufacturing section but nobody cares.
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12-18-2003, 23:10 
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