Posted on 04/30/2011 6:06:50 PM PDT by Graybeard58
Tiny downstate Cairo, already battling the still-rising Ohio and Mississippi rivers, has been drawn into a controversial flood-relief plan that could put thousands of acres of farmland in neighboring Missouri under water.
The plan calls for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to burst a Mississippi River levee to provide relief to little Cairo, population 2,800, as well as relief for a series of pumping stations, flood walls and levees.
But the relief action will trigger flooding in southeastern Missouri, as opening the levee will allow water to flow over some 130,000 acres of Missouri land, mostly farms.
The state of Missouri had sued the Army Corps of Engineers — charged with flood control along the lower Mississippi River. But on Friday, a federal court judge backed the Army Corps plan.
And on Saturday, a federal appeals court rejected Missouri’s appeal, upholding the ruling.
“If we open the levee, it would allow us to release the water, and that would have the effect of lessening the pressure on the flood protection system in that part of the country,” said Jim Pogue, a spokesman with the Army Corps of Engineers.
“We would expect that would drop the water by three to four — up to as much as seven feet. It could drop the pressure on the system by as much as a quarter,” Pogue added,.
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) toured the area on Friday, and already the flood waters had reached the front doors of residents’ homes in Cairo, a spokeswoman for Durbin said.
On Saturday morning, the river was up to 59.2 feet, and forecast to hit 60.5 feet by Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service.
Cairo Mayor Judson Childs said Saturday afternoon that he’s called for voluntary evacuation of his city, which is located at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers — both swelled from the heavy rains. But the mayor steered clear of the controversy pitting his town against Missouri.
“It’s voluntary now,” he said of his call for his residents to evacuate. “But as I keep telling everyone, in the next 20 minutes I could mandate it. This is my home too, and my main concern is the safety of the citizens of Cairo.”
Cairo, Illinois is a little obamaville, not worth anywhere near the 130,000 productive acres of farm land in southeastern Missouri that will be destroyed, not to mention the 100 or so farm houses that will be destroyed.
I read a report in a Missouri newspaper that it would flood closer to a half million acres and effect 500-1,000 people.
This is a political decision to protect "Holders people", nothing more and nothing less.
Spare Cairo? Simple, just blow up the levees on your own side of the river, flood your own land.
“This is a political decision to protect “Holders people”, nothing more and nothing less.”
You nailed it! As well, if they destroy enough crop land for the year, it will help are great economic recovery....
2800 democrat votes in Cairo need protecting!
Evacuation no longer voluntary in Cairo. They have until midnight to get out.
Another storm is getting going to hit Illinois
One of the farmers who will be affected called local Chicago talk radio yesterday. He said Illinois didn’t maintain their levees properly (kinda like New Orleans?) and now Missouri farmers will suffer. He was very angry.....Today’s news reports were turning it into a racial issue. Probably Dem Illinois politicians trying to get ahead of the story of their negligence..
Otherwise one would pipe out and say the Commission might as well bully the comets in their courses and undertake to make them behave, as try to bully the Mississippi into right and reasonable conduct.”
He did have a way with words.
And we have seen the Mighty Mississip laugh over and through the levees time and again - sometimes burying whole towns.
Since when does one person/s have the right to pass their fate on to someone else? If they can divert the water to the harm of no one else - fine. But where in hell do they think they have the right to wipe other peoples homes and living off the face of the earth?
I pray they can be stopped. And then, if their little town is destroyed, let them do what another town did - rebuild HIGHER - out of the flood plain. DUH. Which, after other such examples, they should have doing anyway.
I puzzles me, with all the building ‘codes’ across across the country, they still let people build in flood and fire and mudslide zones.
Cairo's residents are mostly black. The town is an arm pit, as I noted before, not worth the hundreds of thousands of acres of prime Missouri farm land that will be lost to production, plus the farm houses that will be destroyed.
Flood borne silt would be one of the best things for that farmland. Millenia of annual floods is why it is farmland.
S.E. Missouri farm land is among the richest on earth already. Until the Little River Drainage District drained the land around 1900, most of it was swamp.
“He said Illinois didn’t maintain their levees properly (kinda like New Orleans?)”
So maybe they will fail before they can destroy the Missouri farm land! I would never wish this on anyone, but this political corruption has to end! Maybe the lawmaker in question should deliver paddles and boats to the farmers that will be effected. I would believe that most of the farmers would use the paddles on the asses backside. I would anyway:~\
Cairo is destroying itself slowly anyway...why not just finish the job in a judicious manner??? Good riddance...
If flooding is so beneficial, why would the farmers object? And why wouldn't Cairo want to be flooded?
The Delta is a wet place. The only levees they should have should be around the urban areas. Elevated earthen causeways can be built through the area to allow for transportation, but stopping and channeling the flood zones of the rivers in the Lower Midwest is as unwise today as it was nearly two centuries ago when they started doing that.
So should little obamaville Cairo.
Blow up a levee on the Missouri side to save Illinois property? It makes no sense at all.
Cairo is East St. Louis, on a smaller scale.
Cairo Ill looked like it had been a quaint old Victorian town. I have never been to St. Louis.
***Cairo, Illinois is a little obamaville,****
Back about 1969, the Cairo police department was preparing for race riots so built their own armored personel carrier. They called it THE WAR WAGON. I never heard if they got to try it out.
***Cairo is destroying itself slowly anyway...why not just finish the job in a judicious manner??? Good riddance...***
Does anyone miss Natchez Under the Hill, Mississippi? No difference.
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