By WHITNEE ICE
St. Joseph Post
Despite lingering drought in the upper basin of the Missouri River, the United States Armey Corps of Engineers has no concerns with the river’s current water levels.
Corps Emergency Manager Mike Dulin says northwest Missouri and northeast Kansas shouldn't have any concerns about Missouri River water levels.
“I think northwest Missouri, there may be a little teeny bit of dryness up there but for the most part it is sitting about as well as they can for this time of year,” Kluck reports during a conference call with stakeholders and the news media.
Corps of Engineers Power Production Team Lead Mike Swenson says the Corps cannot guarantee access to the water, due to some potential obstacles.
“There’s always water in the river and there’s plenty there for all of the users, all the municipal, all the industrial, all the irrigators in whatever reach they’re in or if they’re growing the water from the reservoir,” says Swenson.
National Weather Service Hydrologist Kevin Low says the heavy rain in June led to widespread flooding in some areas of eastern Kansas and northern Missouri.
“Some locations received an excess of 15 inches of rain during that 7-day period,” says Low. “The highest 24-hour total that I remember seeing was 10.2 inches and that occurred at a couple locations in northern Missouri.”
Even with the recent downpour, the upper basin runoff for June was 52% of its average due to the low precipitation in the Sioux City, Iowa area as the upper basin experiences lingering drought.