Ever since the Bureau of Reclamation constructed the main stem reservoirs on the Missouri River, there's been a wide division of opinion on how the river should be managed.
That difference of opinion was apparent at a Missouri River conference held last summer in Sioux City. Speaker after speaker, representing upper and lower basin positions expounded on the rightness of their cause. However, only one offered a potential solution.
Clay Jenkinson, a writer and scholar of Jefferson and Lewis & Clark, admits he's no expert, but said he is intensely interested in solving the Missouri River management problems.
"I believe that what we need to do is examine the whole issue and determine which things must stay, and I'll suggest that includes recreation, flood control, respect for the Indian Tribes who lost the most with the dam construction, and municipal water," he told the people gathered at the conference.
"What we really need to do is take off the table, some of the uses of the river that are no longer feasible, and that means up and downstream interests are going to have to each give a little."
He continued, "So, let's look at navigation and honestly recognize the environmental havoc it has wreaked on the lower basin. It is neither economically or environmentally justifiable, so it goes off the table. On the other hand, some upstream interests continue to cling to the irrigation issue, even today when it is clearly not feasible and enormously expensive. In fact, irrigation in the upper basin always been a pipe dream. So let's take these two irrational uses off the table, and most objective viewers will then realize that without them, there's enough water for everyone. That would result in managing the Missouri River for the truly important uses, and when we reach that point, we'll agree on how best to manage the Missouri River."
The ill-fated Oahe Irrigation Project actually died when former President Jimmy Carter included it in his infamous water project "hit list."
But even before that, the project had been critically wounded when it became the subject of bitter battles within the state, with farmers who were slated to be benefactors of irrigation, fighting the hardest. Toward the end of that battle, the farmers gained the upper hand by winning the majority of seats on the Oahe Conservancy Sub-District board.
In North Dakota, the Garrison Diversion project was also eliminated by Carter, though some there still cling to the unrealistic dream of transporting water across the state via open canals, in spite of a short growing season and the environmental damage it would cause.
Jenkinson's right. If we (North and South Dakota) would agree to drop any claims to irrigation water, it might be easier to convince downstream interests that navigation is just as unrealistic a use of Missouri River water.
I'm guessing that over the next thirty or forty years, those smart ideas could become reality.
