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Location: St. Louis, Missouri, United States

Sunday, July 10, 2011

A Revolution in Muddy Brown

Timothy Birdnow

The Army Corps of Engineers held water in reservoirs during the spring despite high snow pack and compelling evidence that flooding was immanent. According to this article in the Great Plains Examiner:

http://www.greatplainsexaminer.com/2011/07/02/public-records-show-corps-reacted-too-late-to-avoid-flood/

"The period between March 20 and May 6 has been difficult for the Army Corps of Engineers to explain. During that span, the Corps’ water managers kept river levels low and stockpiled near-record amounts of water behind the three upper basin dams on the Missouri River, despite evidence that the Rocky Mountains were holding a lot more snow than normal.

The reservoirs were so full by early May that they couldn’t contain the late-spring rainfall that pounded Montana and the Dakotas.

Public records studied by the Great Plains Examiner show Fort Peck, Garrison and Oahe dams each were holding more than 99 percent of their total water capacity in late April. Lake Sakakawea, the largest reservoir along the river, had risen 10 feet into the flood-control zone before the Corps of Engineers began ramping up release rates from Garrison Dam to create storage space for the heavy rain and melting snow.

Emergency releases from the reservoirs in June flooded communities along a 1,700-mile stretch of the Missouri River. Almost immediately, people who live in the watershed accused federal water managers of mismanagement, officials with the Corps of Engineers pointed at their operations manuals and elected officials cast a wide net of suspicion over the two-month period leading up to the flood.

[...]

When flood conditions arise, the three upper-basin reservoirs act as the the primary storage units because they have the greatest storage capacity and their locations upriver provide the most flexibility to manage floods in the system as a whole.

But when asked repeatedly whether early spring floods downriver caused more water to be held at Fort Peck, Garrison and Oahe dams, the Corps of Engineers said no. Farhat also said concerns about flooding along the Mississippi River had no bearing on water releases into the Missouri River.

“We do not make release decisions based on conditions along the Mississippi River,” she said.

[...]

Daily logs kept by the Corps of Engineers show that water managers began 2011 on an aggressive schedule to draw down the levels at Lake Sakakawea, releasing high amounts of water through the dam in January, February and the beginning of March. The average release rate of about 25,000 cubic feet per second during the first two-and-a-half months was almost twice as much as average for that time of year.

But instead of pushing more water through Garrison Dam to keep up with high inflows, the Corps of Engineers reduced the release rates. The rate of release from the dam during the next 45 days was lowered to an average of about 16,000 cubic feet per second. During that time, water flowed into Lake Sakakawea at an average of 60,000 cubic feet per second and raised the reservoir levels by about 10 feet.

End excerpts.

Now, why did they reduce release? Was it fear of drought? To keep levels up to protect endangered species? Who ultimately gave the order.

I suspect it came straight for Washington; most likely from the office of Ken Salazar at the Department of the Interior.

Why do I suspect that? Because the Army Corps of Engineers blew some levees to protect Democrat strongholds and flooded farm country, then swooped in to buy this fertile bottom land for pennies on the dollar. http://tbirdnow.mee.nu/guess_whos_buying_flooded_midwest_farmland

Who said "never let a good crisis go to waste"? I believe it was Obama's former chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel.

Think about it; it was obvious a flood was coming anyway. Barack Obama's administration is chock-full of revolutionaries who want to fundamentally remake America, and along comes this looming crisis. There is a great deal that can be taken from this. For starters, it helps sew chaos, the goal of Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward, who advocated the "Cloward-Piven Strategy" of overloading the system. A flood that engulfs the Midwest puts serious strain on a system already strained, and adds to the feelings in this country of impending doom and disaster. It drives people off the bottomlands - a goal of environmentalists, who want to restore the "wetlands". It allows government to take some of the most productive farmland in the world. It Punishes political enemies. A pre-planned disaster allows friends of the Administration to make money (Soros, anyone?) It helps to bankrupt Midwestern states, who may well have no choice but to crawl to the federal government for help. Oh, and it's sure to be blamed on Global Warming.

In short, there was going to be a flood anyway. Why not use it to advantage?

At every turn this regime finds excuses to grab more power. Why should we assume anything different here?

The Great Flood of 2011 is starting to look like a revolution in muddy brown.

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