Sec. 12313. Increased protection for agricultural interests in the Missouri River Basin
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Congress finds the following: Record runoff occurred in the Missouri River basin during 2011 as a result of historic rainfall over portions of the upper basin coupled with heavy plains and mountain snowpack. Runoff above Sioux City, Iowa, during the 5-month period of March through July totaled an estimated 48.4 million acre-feet (referred to in this section as MAF ). This runoff volume was more than 20 percent greater than the design storm for the Missouri River Mainstem Reservoir System (referred to in this section as the System ), which was based on the 1881 runoff of 40.0 MAF during the same 5-month period.
During the 2011 runoff season, nearly 61 million acre-feet of water entered the Missouri River system, far surpassing the previous record of 49 MAF in runoff that was set during the flood of 1997. Given the incredible amount of water entering the System, the summer months were spent working to evacuate as much water from the System as possible, ultimately leading to record high water releases from Gavins Point Dam of 160,000 cubic feet per second, a rate that more than doubled the previous release record of 70,000 cubic feet per second set in 1997.
For nearly four months, those extremely high releases from Gavins Point were maintained, resulting in severe and sustained flooding, with much of western Iowa and eastern Nebraska as well as portions of South Dakota, Kansas, and Missouri inundated by a flooding river three to five feet deep, up to 11 miles wide, and flowing at a rate of 4 to 11 miles per hour. Thousands of homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed and hundreds of millions of dollars in damage was done to roads and other public infrastructure.
In addition to the homes, businesses, and infrastructure impacted by the flooding, hundreds of thousands of acres of cropland were affected. The Department of Agriculture has estimated that 400,000 to 500,000 acres of some of the most productive crop land in the world was flooded in 2011. Local Farm Services Agency representatives have estimated that $82,100,000 was lost in 2011 alone due to damaged or lost crops and unplanted acres. Not only did the flooding eliminate the 2011 crop, but it is highly unlikely that many farmers will be able to put that land back into production at any point in the near future.
Producers will have to contend with large piles of sand, silt, and other debris that have been deposited in their fields, meaning the impact of the 2011 flood will be felt in the agricultural communities up and down the Missouri River for many years to come. Currently, the amount of storage capacity in the System that is set aside for flood control is based upon the vacated space required to control the 1881 flood, because prior to the 2011 flood, the 1881 flood was seen as the high water mark .
Given the historic flooding that took place in 2011, it is clear that year’s flooding now represents a new high water mark , surpassing the flooding of even the 1881 flood. It is important that the flood control related functions of the System management be adjusted to reflect the reality of the 2011 flood as the new worst case scenario for flooding along the Missouri River. System management may begin to be adjusted to account for the 2011 flood through a recalculation of the amount of storage space within the System that is allocated to flood control, using the model not of the 1881 flood, but of the greatest flood experienced—the flood of 2011.
As a result of the flooding in 2011, many States received disaster declarations from the Department of Agriculture to help farmers and producers recover from the damage done by the high water. Though helpful, even the assistance provided by the Department of Agriculture will not provide many in the agriculture community with the resources to put their land back into production any time soon. Without the protection that will come from a fundamental change in the System’s flood control storage allocations, farmers, producers, and other agricultural interests who may be in a position to restart their operations will find it difficult to justify doing so, given the fact that they will not be protected from similar flooding in the future.
In order to strengthen the agricultural economy, revitalize the rural communities, and conserve the natural resources of the Missouri River basin, the Congress directs that the Secretary of Agriculture take action to promote immediate increased flood protection to farmers, producers, and other agricultural interests in the Missouri River basin by working within its jurisdiction to support efforts— to recalculate the amount of space within the System that is allocated to flood control storage using the 2011 flood as the model; and to increase the Missouri River’s channel capacity between the reservoirs and below Gavins Point.