levee

Republican Sen. Roy Blunt, of Missouri, is threatening to block President Barack Obama's choice for Environmental Protection Agency administrator until plans are resolved for a long-stalled levee project in southeast Missouri.

Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill is joining two Republican colleagues in calling for federal agencies to move ahead with plans to close a 1,500-foot gap in a southeast Missouri levee, a project long delayed over environmental concerns.

McCaskill sent a letter in mid-December to the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, calling uncertainty and delays in the project "unacceptable."

Restoring the Birds Point-New Madrid Levee to its original height may take a little more time.

The Army Corps of Engineers has awarded contracts to three firms for work to repair the Birds Point levee in southeast Missouri, a levee intentionally breached by the corps at the height of spring flooding in 2011.

A new study suggests the Army Corps of Engineers made the right decision when it blew up the Birds Point-New Madrid levee last year.

The study’s authors argue the floodway would have been inundated with or without Corps action.

Ken Olson is a soil sciences professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and he co-authored the study.

Regional news coverage from the KBIA News room, including:

Congressman Emanuel Cleaver will be among the participants at a Missouri River meeting next month.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has awarded an $888,000 contract to repair a northwestern Missouri levee damaged during last year's flooding.

Regional news coverage from the KBIA Newsroom, including:

• Missouri high court to consider redistricting challenge
• Northwest Missouri levee districts get grants
• Missouri's senator at odds on Obama's contraceptive plan

Six levee, drainage and road districts in northwest Missouri will receive a total of about $1.2 million in community development block grants to help repair damage from flooding along the Missouri River. Gov. Jay Nixon's office said in a release that the six districts are located in Atchison and Holt counties.

Levee districts applied for the grants to cover either the 20 percent local cost share required under the Army Corps of Engineers' maintenance program, or for the entire cost if the levee district is not part of the Corps' system.

Governor Jay Nixon met with Missouri Levee and Drainage District members in Columbia this weekend. He and other state and federal officials responded to over eight months of questions from farmers and others on how Missouri’s waterways will be protected from future massive flooding. This is the first time a Missouri governor attended an annual levee district association meeting in over 15 years, and with good reason, as Governor Nixon addressed the standing room only crowd, he branded 2011: “the year of natural disasters.”

Regional news coverage from the KBIA News room, including:

• School closures in Columbia on a snowy morning.
• Governor Nixon heads to Columbia to discuss flood protection.
• The Missouri Supreme Court plans to look again at congressional districts.

State and federal leaders are gathering in Columbia tomorrow to talk about ways to prevent last year’s devastating floods in northwest and southeastern Missouri.

Inspectors with the Army Corps of Engineers are performing daily inspections of the area where the Birds Point levee was intentionally breached in May.