Corps of Engineers not to blame for Missouri River flooding

Matt Kelley in Nebraska Radio Network: An independent panel that includes scientists from three federal agencies has determined the U-S Army Corps of Engineers was not primarily to blame for damage caused by historic Missouri River flooding last year.

Critics have said the Corps should have released more water from the reservoirs earlier in the season to make room in anticipation of the flooding.

Neil Grigg, a civil engineering professor at Colorado State University, was on the review panel and says it’s not that simple.

“To release water earlier, this means you’ve gotta have like perfect foresight of what’s gonna’ happen down the road, in particular, that heavy rainfall in Montana that occurred in May,” Grigg explains. “It’s easy to say you should have known that and you should have released that water sooner. But the truth is, nobody could have known that. It was a completely unanticipated weather event.”

Grigg says snowmelt runoff from the mountains and the plains combined with the heavy rains to produce the record flood.

He says no one accurately predicted the amount of rain and melting snow that filled the Missouri River and its reservoirs....

Fort Calhoun nuclear reactor on June 16, 2011 during Missouri River flood. Photo by the US Army Corps of Engineers