Bad Idea, Good Idea?

[Wayne SW/MO]

I question whether or not the COE is realistically evaluating the choices they are making. It seems to me that the loss of crops, wildlife and structures in the areas they are choosing to flood is unrealistic in the end.

In the end their decision is going to hit most families hard. Food shortages and high prices may not be a good trade off in the end.

[Tim Smith]

I question whether or not the COE is realistically evaluating the choices they are making. It seems to me that the loss of crops, wildlife and structures in the areas they are choosing to flood is unrealistic in the end.

In the end their decision is going to hit most families hard. Food shortages and high prices may not be a good trade off in the end.

No chance of a food shortage resulting from this. Losses will be offset by the increased yields on higher ground.

Not much loss of wildlife when a river floods either. They're adapted to it. Cities aren't.

Disrupted families and cities will definitely hurt us though.

If your poll had been should we move cities out of the flood plain, I'd be a solid "yes" and I'd support forcing people to move out or taking away government support for them after a sundown period. The COE spends way too much money trying to prevent something that is a part of nature that is beneficial to the riparian zone if handled correctly and ultimately can't be stopped.

But for now you don't have much choice but to try to protect the cities.

[Wayne SW/MO]

Not much loss of wildlife when a river floods either. They're adapted to it. Cities aren't.

I would disagree with that Tim. When the flood is a minor expansion of a water way that might be true, but when you talk about square miles of flooding that isn't true. Rabbits, Quail, fawns and many other small animals simply can't outrun a flash flood of a large area. While birds can fly their nest can't.

No chance of a food shortage resulting from this. Losses will be offset by the increased yields on higher ground.

Given the fact that planting has taken place, how do increase yields as an after thought?

[Al Agnew]

It's a tough choice. If they don't open the gates and give the water a place to go, it's quite possible they lose BOTH in the end. The really, really stupid thing is...if they designed something as a "safety valve", and they knew they'd have to use it as such at some point, why in the heck would they ALLOW development in it? And why in the heck would people choose to develop it? Hey, if people were already there, they should have been bought out long ago. If you're going to design the safety valve, then you oughta OWN the safety valve, and not allow any development at all in it, just let it be farmed with the understanding that if it needs to be used, the farmer loses his crops.

[flytyer57]

When will the USACE realize they can't defeat mother nature? Build a levee to protect a town. Now you got more flooding down river, so build another levee to protect the next town. When will it end?

And when it comes time to find out that the levees will not do the job they are supposed to do, waste taxpayer dollars by blowing up the levees they spent millions of taxpayer dollars on to build.

The only sensible solution is to get everyone off the flood plains and get rid of the levees. Let the water go where it wants.

If people are stupid enough to live on the flood plain, then let them live up to their own responibility.

I have no compassion for those flood victims along the White River system such as Taneycomo. You build a house on the edge of a river...

[Justin Spencer]

I have compassion for people that are flooded, but when you live in an area called the "floodway" or in a town such as Morgan City where you have chosen not to move when you know that sometime you may be intentionally flooded, you shouldn't complain when the inevitable happens. I saw on the news that these people will probably receive no federal aid as they were asked to relocate in the past but chose to stay. I agree with Al on the safety valve thing, no one should live where they will be flooded intentionally, but it's tough to make people leave a place they have lived their entire lives regardless of how risky it is. Not realistic to move people out of flood plains and let nature take it's course I'm afraid we passed that option decades ago, but I also don't want to foot the bill to keep helping people living in high risk areas, much like you don't want to foot the bill for my fixups when the campground floods.

[Wayne SW/MO]

You do have to remember that flooding those areas naturally isn't the same as opening the "faucet". In a natural flood the rise is slow and deliberate and often improves farmland by dropping silt. When they blow a levee or open gates they create flash floods that wash across farmlands which can all but destroy them.

I don't think you can compare a house on Taneycomo to a farm house miles from a river. There are no levees on Taney, but millions have been spent giving people in flood plains a sense of security. If the levees aren't there to keep them from flooding, why build them at all?

It seems to me it would more economically feasible to flood urban areas. The rebuilding would at least create jobs, where as in rural areas the losses are virtually all loss.

Criticism of farmers living in flood plains makes little sense when you're comparing them to urban areas also living in flood plains, or below sea level.

[Al Agnew]

Wayne, I'm criticizing the urban areas as much or more than the floodplain farming areas. But I see your other point...I guess that if it's designed to be a floodway, just remove the levee on the river side and let it flood whenever.

[ozark trout fisher]

Let me preface this by saying that I wish that no levees had ever been built in the first place. Even with levees, the idea of living in a flood plain is very simply a bad idea.

But I do think that if you have to choose between washing out farmland, or washing out urban areas, you have to choose to flood farmland. This position is actually pretty uncharacteristic of me on this issue... It just makes me sick to watch people building in places like Chesterfield Bottoms for example (I know they are not affected by this flood being on the Missouri River, but it's just a matter of time). When you are betting everything on a levee that certainly will fail at some point down the road, you don't qualify as an intelligent person in my opinion. Still I can't quite make the leap to the point where I am willing to destroy the homes of so many thousands people just to save farmland. I am an environmentalist, and some would even consider me a radical one, and on many issues I think that human beings need to make a lot more sacrifices than we currently, are, and if we could go back in time and not have large settlements in flood plains, that would be ideal. I agree with flytier, the long term solution is to have everyone move out of those areas and then blow the levees for good. But to the degree that is possible, we need to not do that at such short notice-that would be something that would take a matter of years to be accomplished properly without completely hanging the residents out to dry..

It's sometimes good to take radical positions on these kinds of issues, but you do need to have a little empathy at the same time. I do not want to see these peoples' home's destroyed.

[flytyer57]

I wouldn't say that all the levees should be blown asap. Just leave them all alone and do not put anymore effort into trying to save some town or any farmland. Just quit spending money on them. Tell the people that no more work will be done to the levees and it's time to get out before the next great flood, which seems to be happening quite regularly.

Give the people notice and let them live with their actions or inactions.