Conflicting Rulings Issued over Corps's Management of Missouri

摘要

A decade-old dispute over the management of the Missouri River pitted two federal district court rulings against each other this summer and resulted in a contempt of court charge being leveled against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. On July 12 Gladys Kessler, a judge 011 the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, ordered the Corps to lower the flow of the river this summer by several thousand cubic feet per second so that the flow would more closely replicate that of the river before it was dammed. The decreased flow would improve the spawning and nesting conditions for species of fish and birds in and around the river that are considered endangered by the federal government. The Corps refused to comply with the order, however, because compliance would have contravened a ruling issued just two months earlier by a judge in Nebraska, who had instructed the agency to maintain a flow high enough to accommodate barge traffic.