http://www.argusleader.com/article/20110731/NEWS/107310314/Flood-questions-pinned-corps-swirl-politicsIt was June 3, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' water management chief for the Missouri River basin had just received word that construction on a private levee in Dakota Dunes had been delayed.
The contractors needed the corps to postpone stepping up releases from Gavins Point Dam - pivot point in the battle between upper and lower basin interests on the Missouri River - for an extra day.
"Don't feel we have much choice here," Farhat wrote other corps officials.
Brig. Gen. John McMahon, commander of the corps' Northwestern Division, replied soon after: "Roger. Thanks. This is a smart 'political' move IF it's supportable from a (water management) perspective."
The next day, another official jumped on the email thread: "You know the politics - We'll do what we need to do."
They agreed that news of the schedule change should, for now, stay with the corps.
"Of course, nothing public," engineer Paul Boyd wrote.
This exchange - one among thousands of email conversations obtained by the Argus Leader and the Gannett Washington Bureau under the Freedom of Information Act - illustrates the political considerations that underlie the corps' decision-making in the midst of one of the worst flood seasons in the river's history.
Emails include Farhat's communications from June 1 to June 23, when the corps announced that releases from Gavins Point Dam would climb to a peak of 160,000 cubic feet per second. As with email traffic previously released by the Argus Leader, many names were redacted.
The correspondence offers a window into the internal deliberation and political maneuvering behind the flood fight, as corps officials hustled to put out fires and squelch rumors, spin journalists and hold off politicians whose inquiries sharpened as flooding intensified across the basin.
In the end, contractors in Dakota Dunes needed only a few hours of breathing room, not a whole day. "No big deal," Farhat said last week.
She said, moreover, that while the corps strives for transparency in its decision-making, it does not make public all of its internal deliberations.
"We make a decision, then we tell people about it. ... In that case, we didn't change anything. Had we decided to wait a day, we would have made an announcement," she said.
'We don't have time to run what-if scenarios'
As public scrutiny of the corps swelled in June, so did interest from South Dakota's congressional delegation, correspondence shows.
On June 1, Jennifer Greer, a higher-up at the corps' Washington headquarters, set up a meeting between congressional leaders, including Sen. John Thune, and Maj. Gen. Bo Temple, the corps' acting commanding general.
The meeting was June 8, the same day corps officials decided to increase releases from Fort Peck in Montana, following overnight rains that doubled the amount of water flowing into the reservoir. After the meeting, Greer posted her notes.
Thune "didn't advocate the position (that floodwater should have been evacuated sooner), but it is what he is hearing," Greer wrote.
"SEN Thune - asked how influential is Fish and Wildlife would be if there were updates to the manual. ... SEN Thune suggested that if the Corps needed assistance to lessen such influence (including legislation) they were willing to help. MG Temple stated that he did not see this as a problem - it is a balancing issue, but thought all would work together."
A few days earlier, Thune aide David Schwietert had written to ask whether more of the system's flood-control zone could have been freed up sooner. The senator, he wrote, is "curious what the modeling would show if the Corps had released additional water from Garrison/Oahe starting at the beginning of this year. ... Something tells me that based on the amount of precipitation/ runoff that we've witnessed, it would still have likely required 100+ cfs out of both dams."
Schwietert had to follow up twice before getting a response, and corps officials ignored subsequent requests to clarify information, Thune spokeswoman Andi Fouberg said last week.
An official drafted a response June 23 to Schwietert and sent it to Farhat for vetting. "I thought that for this response I'd stick more to the talking points even though I did make a few modifications," the official wrote.
Farhat responded the next day: "I definitely agree with the approach to stick to the talking points. We don't have time to run what-if scenarios now."
Farhat said last week that her office gave Thune's office a preliminary estimate but that she couldn't spare the time or staff to run the analysis.
"We've had many requests like that - a lot of folks were, what if this, what if that - and what we told every one of them is, there's a time to do that kind of analysis, and it's not in the heat of the battle," she said.
On June 13, an aide for Sen. Tim Johnson sent questions about the timing of the releases. Kayla Eckert Uptmor, planning branch chief for the Omaha District, responded that "we had no basis on which to increase flows to historic levels until the extraordinary rainfall event which resulted in a record runoff in May."
'Pounding that message' on upstream rains
Corps officials would come to lean on this talking point as they combated the criticism that more water should have been moved downriver sooner. Considering the amount of flood storage available in the system and the saturating rains in May, releasing the water earlier would have done little good anyway, they said.
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http://www.argusleader.com/article/20110731/NEWS/107310314/Flood-questions-pinned-corps-swirl-politicsKNEX.com | US Army Corps of Engineers reduces release from Gavins Point dam in SD
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has started to reduce releases from Gavins Point dam into the Missouri River as it flows between Nebraska and Iowa.
The corps says releases at the dam near Yankton, S.D., were lowered Saturday from 160,000 cubic feet per second to 155,000 cfs.
It's scheduled to be lowered again on Monday, to 150,000 cfs.
The releases are scheduled to held at that level until mid-August, then gradually cut each day to reach the target of 90,000 cfs by month's end and 40,000 cfs by Oct. 1.
The corps has been releasing massive amounts of water from the dams along the river to deal with heavy spring rains and above-average mountain snowpack. The releases have caused record flooding in Nebraska and Iowa.
http://www.kxnet.com/custom404.asp?404;http://www.kxnet.com/t/corps-of-engineers/814962.asp
http://www.omaha.com/article/20110606/NEWS01/110609849Flood relief: The Pottawattamie County Community Foundation is accepting applications for disaster relief from county residents and tax-exempt organizations. Applications for the foundation's newly created Disaster Relief Grants are available at ourpccf.org or by contacting the foundation office at 712-256-7007. Donations in support of the flood relief effort can be made at the website.
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Missouri River Dams and River Levels Flood Map
US ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS FORECAST SCHEDULE OF RELEASES OF 6 MAINSTEM MISSOURI BASIN DAMS
Updated Daily
NOAA Hydrologic
http://water.weather.gov/ahps2/river.php?wfo=abr&wfoid=18696&riverid=203276&view=1%2C1%2C1%2C1%2C1%2C1%2C1%2C1&toggles=10%2C7%2C8%2C2%2C9%2C15%2C6&pt[]=145640&pt[]=142853&pt[]=144098&pt[]=144183&pt[]=142396&pt[]=143355&allpoints=143990%2C145585%2C145025%2C145026%2C144876%2C145027%2C143234%2C143184%2C145519%2C145640%2C144217%2C142150%2C142780%2C142853%2C145202%2C141586%2C144582%2C143543%2C144796%2C144098%2C144240%2C141320%2C141614%2C142968%2C144183%2C142574%2C143478%2C142193%2C142760%2C142003%2C142610%2C142396%2C144496%2C147345%2C141899%2C143355%2C142050%2C141570%2C144165%2C143476%2C141703%2C142023%2C144123%2C141863%2C143539%2C143436%2C141917%2C143009%2C142688%2C142640%2C143925%2C143734%2C142729%2C143790%2C142668%2C141962%2C142132&data[]=hydrograph&submit=Make+my+River+Page!
GARRISON DAM - NORTH DAKOTA
FT RANDALL DAM - NEAR CHAMBERLAIN SD
GAVINS POINT DAM - NEAR YANKTON SD
RESERVOIR CONTROL CENTER REPORTS
Link to daily report:
- The Cave's Archive of daily NW DIVISION OF THE US ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS RESERVOIR CONTROL CENTER DAILY REPORT
- The Cave's OVERFLOW website focused upon US Army Corp of Engineer's Mismanagement of the 6 Missouri River Basin Dams
- THE CAVE'S OVERFLOW - Archive of the Cave's Daily Flood of 2011 Updates
