Environmental Defense Moves to Sue Army Corps of Engineers Over Missouri River Management

(30 March, 2000 ? Washington) Environmental Defense today initiated the formal process necessary to sue the US Army Corps of Engineers for operating the Missouri River in such a way as to jeopardize three federally protected endangered species, the piping plover, least tern and pallid sturgeon. Environmental Defense today filed an 18-page notice of intent to sue the Corps of Engineers.

“For a decade, the US Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) has told the Corps that the way it operates Missouri River dams is causing three magnificent species to go extinct and that its actions are harming several dozen others,” said Tim Searchinger, Environmental Defense senior attorney. “Throughout the decade, the FWS and Environmental Defense have suggested countless practical ways of saving these species while boosting the economy. But the time for waiting is now up.”

“Some will sing the tired old song that saving these three species will hurt the economy, but the opposite is true. The changes needed to protect them would also boost hydropower and could dramatically spur new recreation companies. The Corps refuses to make these changes only because it wants to protect a miniscule barging industry that it estimates at only $7 million per year on a river that produces $1.8 billion in total benefits,” said Searchinger.

“Over the last several years, every leading agricultural transportation economist in the region has found that the Missouri River provides minimal benefits to agriculture,” said Searchinger. “But needed changes would keep reservoir levels higher for the people of Montana, and North and South Dakota to use for recreation. And just think of the benefits to the region if a restored river became truly usable for boating, fishing and wildlife viewing by the people of Sioux City, Omaha, Council Bluffs, Kansas City and St. Louis.”

American Rivers, another conservation group, is filing a similar notice today.

Environmental Defense, a leading national nonprofit organization based in New York, represents more than 300,000 members. Since 1967 we have linked science, economics, and law to create innovative, equitable, and cost-effective solutions to the most urgent environmental problems.