By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Prolonged drought in the upstream Missouri River basin has triggered a reduction of water flowing into the Missouri River, lowering the river level.
Missouri River Basin Water Management Director John Remus says the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has reduced the water level a full foot from Nebraska City to Kansas City, which he says will have an impact on navigation this fall.
“What it does is it requires the navigators in those reaches where we’re at that one foot lower to load their barges lighter by a foot,” Remus tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “So, of course, that means more barges to get the same amount of product up and down the river.”
The Corps also is ending the navigation season three days sooner. Navigation on the Missouri River is now set to end November 28th.
Remus says the Corps hopes to keep Missouri River levels sufficient to supply the water needed for municipal water plants and utilities.
Remus says conditions have been getting worse since the drought first began to emerge in July of 2020.
“In March, about 70% of the upper basin was experiencing some level of drought and about 20% of it was severe drought; very, very dry,” according to Remus. “We have had some good rains throughout the year up there, but conditions have improved, but not enough to really help the runoff.”
Remus says the six upstream reservoirs are 8 ½ million acre-feet below the flood control pool.
“We’re looking at another year next year of something quite similar really to what we’ve seen this year as far as discharges from our system,” Remus says.
Remus says projections call for the upper Missouri River basin to remain extremely dry.
“The wildcard is really snowpack next year,” according to Remus. “We had next to nothing for plains snowpack in 2022 and we had a below average mountain snowpack. So, unless we get better snowpack in the northern part of the basin, we’re probably going to be facing what we’ve seen this year again next year.”