Living River Group

	Living River Group
Explore, enjoy and protect the planet

2011 Missouri River Flood

Birds not the reason for flooding
by Robert Kelly Schneiders

Some Missouri Valley residents are blaming the effort to save the least tern and piping plover from extinction for the present Missouri River flood. These individuals claim the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers held water in the upstream reservoirs this spring to protect the birds and their habitat below Yankton from high flows. They could not be more wrong.
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Another Perspective
by Michael Melius
active member of Sierra Club's Missouri River Network

Since 1986, the Corps has included least terns and piping plovers in its management plans for the dams and reservoirs it calls the System. However, other authorized purposes have such precedence that the System’s operation has rarely, and then only modestly, been adjusted to serve the birds' needs specifically.
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Want to learn more about the Missouri River and team with other Sierrans who care about the river? Sign up for the MR Network, one of the Club's Activist Network teams.

Report Reviewing the Corps of Engineers Operations During the 2011 Flood

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers appointed a panel to conduct an independent technical review of its operations of the reservoir system during the 2011 flood. Click here to see a copy of their report titled "Review of the Regulation of the Missouri River Mainstem Reservoir System During the Flood of 2011."

Position Paper:
Post-Flood Missouri River Management

Living River Group members live and recreate along and on the Wild and Scenic Missouri National Recreational River segments. A position paper giving input to the Corps of Engineers and the National Park Service as they manage the river after the flood has been approved by the Executive Committees of the Living River Group and the South Dakota Chapter and by the Missouri River Working Group. Click here to read the position paper.

Living River Group

Tar Sands Pipelines
Jim Heisinger
Tuesday, May 15
7:00 pm
WH Over Museum

Professor James Heisinger will give a PowerPoint presentation on the alarming proliferation of tar sands pipelines in this country. Tar sands oil generates more greenhouse gases than other oil sources and the massive increase in the refining of tar sands prompted Dr. James Hansen, Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, to call the XL pipeline a fuse to the "biggest carbon bomb on the planet". Heisinger, Chair of the Living River Group, will try to put Dr. Hansen's comment into perspective, and present updated information on existing tar sands development. He hopes his information will prompt a discussion of how the proposed XL pipeline will relate to Clay and Union County residents.

List of activities and accomplishments

List of previous outings.

List of officers

Missouri River Compact

When water resources are becoming scarce, the Living River Group suggests that states in the Missouri River Basin should adopt a compact to keep water in the basin.

Is It Time For a Missouri River Compact? - an article by John Davidson in Pines and Prairie

Missouri River could face diversion pressures. States in the river basin need a compact to protect the river - press release by Living River Group about the need for a Missouri River compact

You can contact us by emailing Vikki Fix.

Do you want to know what it is like to live near an oil refinery?

"We have a high concentration of cases of asthma and cancer in our area," said Hilton Kelly who lives near Shell's Port Arthur oil refinery in Port Arthur, Texas. "One in five families has someone who has asthma or cancer." Kelly said many people have developed rashes from chemicals deposited on the skin. "There is a direct correlation between chemicals and illnesses," he said. Read the story this quote is taken from.

Click here for more stories, articles, reports, and photos.

Citizens Appeal Circuit Court Decision

Sierra Club, Save Union County and Citizens Opposed to Oil Pollution filed an appeal of the decision of the Board of Minerals and Environment to grant an air permit to Hyperion Energy Center for its oil refinery and power plant. Before the hearing was held, the judge granted a request by Hyperion to reopen the permitting process with the Board of Minerals and Environment (BME). The EPA has found that coker quench water tanks - which Hyperion has designed into its power plant plans - to be a source of emissions at refineries and this was not taken into account in the air permit. Sierra Club, Save Union County, and Citizens Opposed to Oil Pollution wanted the permit to be invalidated and the process to start over. Judge Barnett of the Circuit Court affirmed the BME permit. Citizens has appealed the decision to the SD Supreme Court.

Click here to read the court brief for the appeal, documents sent to the board in a contested case hearing of its decision, the judge's decision, a letter from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to SD environmental officials, and other information about the proposed oil refinery.