Increase Flood Control Storage

There are a great many people in Washington D.C. who believe that all the wisdom in the country is located there. I don't happen to believe that. In fact, I believe that many of the common sense solutions we need can be found far away from the Capitol.

Take for instance, last year's devastating flood along the Missouri River. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers tells us that the flood happened because they did not have enough flood storage room to contain it all.

Missouri was hit hard by this unprecedented release of water and, so too, was western Iowa. My colleague from Iowa, Steve King, authored a bill that makes sense. It says that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should recalculate the total amount of flood control storage space within the MO River Reservoir System so that it is sufficient to control the largest flood experienced in the system.

It would also require the USACE to adjust the system's two flood control storage zones prior to the runoff season each year, to ensure that there is adequate space in each to prevent serious downstream flooding.

We need to take steps now to prevent serious flooding in the future. The way to do that is to be prepared for the worst case scenario like we had last year. We need to be prepared and having more storage room available makes all the sense in the world.

I support this bill and I hope that we can finally make common sense changes to the way the Missouri river is managed.

# # #