This segment is part of The State of Science, a series featuring science stories from public radio stations across the United States. These two stories by Eli Chen appeared on St. Louis Public Radio. 

Parson-Appointed Advisory Group Calls For More Flood Protection For Rural Areas

An advisory group Missouri Governor Mike Parson appointed to study ways to address flooding has released a report that recommends state and federal agencies repair and strengthen levees, especially in rural areas hit severely by prolonged flooding this year.

Record flooding in 2019 overtopped and breached dozens of levees along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, causing damage to many farms and communities. Some parts of western Missouri experienced flooding for as long as seven months.

Parson signed an executive order in July to create a Flood Recovery Advisory Working Group to recommend how to improve flood recovery and the state’s levee system.

Rebuilding in flood-prone areas has led to repeated damage in the same areas, said Dru Buntin, deputy director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

“What the group has tried to look at is based on what we’ve seen in these large floods, whether it’s 2011, 1993 or this past year. Where are we seeing those problem areas?” Buntin said.

The 24-member advisory group includes officials from state agencies, primarily the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and the Missouri Department of Agriculture. Other members represented levee districts, agriculture groups and the navigation industry.

The report released Tuesday finds that state and federal agencies should support levee district projects aimed at reducing constriction of the river during floods. It advocates that state and federal governments support, in particular, Atchison County’s efforts in northwest Missouri to move levees farther back from the Missouri River.

The advisory group of regulators and representatives from the navigation and agriculture industry recommended that the Army Corps of Engineers should repair breached levees to help ease the costs for farmers paying crop insurance. Members also suggested that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency extend the dates for determining premium rates on the 2020 growing season.

The report largely focused on structural solutions, such as levee repairs. However, it did suggest that officials consider alternative flood-control strategies, such as buying frequently flooded properties. Environmental groups have also advocated for non-structural solutions, such as restoring wetlands to reconnect rivers to the floodplain.

The Missouri Coalition for the Environment and other environmental organizations have complained that the working group does not include scientists or someone to provide a conservation perspective.

The advisory group plans to release a final report in late May.

Environmentalists Say Missouri Flood Advisory Group’s Recommendations Fall Short

An advisory group’s recommendations to Missouri Governor Mike Parson that state and federal agencies largely focus on repairing and strengthening levees will not do enough to protect communities from floods, environmentalists say.

Parson created the Flood Recovery Advisory Working Group last summer after record flooding along the state’s major rivers caused widespread damage to many Missouri communities. The group mostly consists of regulators, levee district representatives and members of agriculture associations.

There are no scientists and conservationists to acknowledge that climate change will worsen floods and promote long-term solutions to prevent flood damage, said Maisah Khan, water policy director at the Missouri Coalition for the Environment.

“Yes, we need to fix the levees, we need to get these folks out of this bad situation right now. We need to do the recovery piece, but we need to be focused on resiliency just as much,” Khan said. “It should be 50-50. With this set of recommendations, it’s like 90-10.”

The Missouri Coalition for the Environment and other environmental groups have repeatedly argued that levees will fail eventually. Restoring wetlands and other tactics that allow rivers to flow freely would do more to protect Missouri communities from floods, Khan said.

A few parts of the report recommended using alternative flood-control strategies, such as buying frequently flooded properties. It also recommended supporting efforts in Atchison County to move levees away from the Missouri River.

However, the report still encourages a pattern of building up levees that constrict rivers and asking for government aid when floods destroy property, said Bob Criss, a retired Washington University geology professor.

“All this document is, is trying to focus funding and authority to the ag interests. The people who caused the problem are demanding more funds from the rest of us,” Criss said.

The advisory group also presented some misleading information about flooding in its report, he added.

“They even claimed, incredibly, that urban flood problems aren’t as bad as rural flooding, which is just preposterous,” Criss said. “We have enormous flash-flood problems in all of our urban areas.”

The advisory group plans to produce a final version of its recommendations by late May. Khan wants to see the group provide opportunities for the general public to give feedback on the report and more information on how they suggest putting the recommendations into action.

“I think a lot of these recommendations are pretty vague and broad. The devil is going to be in the details on how they are implemented,” she said.