Koster Urges Obama to Declare Emergency on Missouri River

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster is the latest state official to weigh in on the Missouri River flow controversy.

Koster Thursday sent a letter to President Obama supporting a declaration of an emergency to keep water flowing down the Missouri River to help with the levels of the Mississippi River.

Koster says reducing flows from up-river dams on the Missouri River threatens to halt shipping on the Mississippi. He says that will negatively affect commerce in Missouri and all along the MississippiRiver basin.

"If commercial navigation is significantly impaired or eliminated because of navigation hazards, there will be catastrophic consequences to the economy of the nation's heartland, including Missouri, which will reverberate throughout the country," Koster wrote in the letter.

Koster said the drought conditions in the MississippiRiver basin, along with Army Corps of Engineers' plan to reduce flows from the dams on the upper Missouri, threatens commercial transportation because of the presence of rock pinnacles near GrandTower and Thebes, Illinois.

In addition to calls to fast-track the removal of the pinnacles, Koster is asking the President to direct the Corps to take all necessary action to maintain flow support from the Missouri River system for downstream navigation until the pinnacles can be removed.

Numerous industry and trade groups affected by commercial navigation formally requested a presidential declaration of emergency under the Stafford Act on November 27.