Telling the truth about flood control

Our friends from national environmental organizations, and specifically the National Wildlife Federation, would do well to heed the words of Mark Twain, who once said, "Always tell the truth. That way you don't have to remember what you said."

Unfortunately, the NWF isn't following our fellow Missourian's advice. Similar to previous attempts, NWF and their allies are conducting a distortion campaign to confuse the public and try to align neighbor against neighbor. They are doing so by attacking the St. John's Bayou-New Madrid Floodway Project and the rebuilding of the levee protecting the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway. These groups take the position that the completion of this project, which includes closing a 1,400-foot gap in the existing levee system, will impede the operation of the floodway. This is completely false and unsupported by any evidence, but it makes for a great scare tactic.

The truth is that the operation of the floodway by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is a matter of federal law, and it would take an Act of Congress to change or prevent its future operation, irrespective of whether the gap in the levee is closed or not.

The St. John's project will control the flooding of thousands of acres of farmland and help prevent flooding of rural communities in New Madrid and Mississippi Counties. However, since it was last authorized more than a quarter century ago, local supporters have been met, at nearly every turn, with resistance by environmental extremists. Most of these opponents have never set foot within the confines of the floodway. These extremists, and their powerful Washington, D.C., lobbyists, willingly ignore the environmental benefits of the project in order to pursue their broader goal of complete elimination of flood protection.

In addition to providing essential flood control, the project has been designed with many environmental enhancements. The project will increase forested lands in the St. John's Bayou Basin by 35 percent, the New Madrid Floodway by 58 percent, and triple the size of Big Oak Tree State Park. The project calls for keeping flood gates open during portions of high Mississippi River stages, maintaining a hydrologic connection between the floodplain and the river for the benefit of fish, wetlands, waterfowl and shorebirds. The project significantly increases wetland acreage.

The NWF claims it's not opposed to rebuilding the Bird's Point-New Madrid Floodway levee, but their extreme agenda tells a different story. The truth is they want no flood control structures and no levees. They admitted as much publicly to USA Today on May 18, 2011, at the height of the flooding in our region. John Kostyack, the NWF's vice president of wildlife conservation, stated, "We should let the river act more like a river, give it room to run." The article went on to discuss a controversial proposal by Kostyack recommending that the federal government not repair the levee it blew open in Southeast Missouri, but instead allow all 113,000 acres of farmland to be converted into a floodplain with no agricultural use.

Mark Twain was right about telling the truth. It's too bad the NWF isn't remembering what it said in May of last year. However, many of us do remember. We remember all too well.

David LaValle and Dean White are members of the board of supervisors of the St. John's Levee and Drainage District and farm within the floodway.