Iowa residents are invited to attend a Missouri River flood solutions meeting in Nebraska City this week.
According to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, the stakeholder meeting will help identify and prioritize problem areas along the Missouri River as part of a larger multi-state effort to address flooding in the lower Missouri River Basin. The meeting will be held in Nebraska City from 3-5 p.m. on Wednesday at the Lied Lodge and Conference Center.
Tim Hall is hydrology resources coordinator with the Iowa DNR. He says officials out of Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri and Kansas ? as well as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ? will gather input from those who live, farm, and work along the river.
“We are in the midst of a project with those other three states and the Corps,” said Hall. “What we’re trying to do at this stage of the project, is to collect as much input as we can from stakeholders — residents, farmers, businesses — that exist and flourish along the Missouri River to try to help us determine where we should focus our efforts for future improvements and studies.”
This effort is in response to near-historic levels in the Missouri River in 2019. The unprecedented amount of runoff resulted in the lower Missouri River staying above flood stage at multiple locations for nearly nine months, causing billions of dollars of damage to homes, businesses, agricultural production, levees and natural resources across five states, including Iowa.
Once meetings are finished, Hall says each state will prioritize suggestions for improvements along the river. He says they will be using the information to work with the Corps of Engineers to implement the improvements once funding is available.
“Ultimately, what we want to do is identify areas where we think there are solutions that could be implemented when funding is available to the Corps,” said Hall. “We want to make sure they go out and address the most important areas first. So, some of this is in anticipation of some infrastructure funding through Congress. When that money is freed up, we want the Corps to be able to address the areas that are most important first and that’s why they have turned to the states to try to collect that information.”
If Iowans can?t attend Wednesday?s meeting in person, the online version will be available via a WebEx meeting or by phone at 408-418-9388.
