By STEVE BINDER
Illinois Correspondent

CHARLESTON, Mo. — In the Missouri Bootheel, where farmland is considered some the most fertile in the United States, Roger Teague said he’s slowly coming to accept the possibility he may lose an entire growing season.
Teague was among about 100 people who attended a quickly-called meeting for farmers late last week about the status of property within the Birds Point-New Madrid floodway.

“Right now, my biggest concern is getting back to my dad’s land and to check on the equipment, but they’re not letting us in. When will we be able to get to our own property?” asked Teague, who farms about 1,200 acres in the floodway.

It was a question with no easy answer, said Jon Hagler, Missouri’s director of Agriculture. “Realistically, it may not be until the middle of next week or the end of the week before the Army Corps of Engineers allows access. We’re at the mercy of the water levels at this point,” he said.

The meeting room at the Delta Growers Assoc. building couldn’t hold all those attending, and many were still upset over federal action to blow a two-mile hole in the Birds Point levee the evening of May 2. Two more openings were made as the week went on, including the last as the group was meeting on Thursday.

Joining Hagler was U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.), Missouri Department of Natural Resources’ Davis Minton and state Reps. Steve “Tiny” Hodges (D-East Prairie) and Terry Swinger (D-Caruthersville).

“People sometimes forget how hard-working we are and that we have some of the most intelligent, educated farmers right here in the Bootheel of Missouri,” Hagler said. “Right now we need to hear from you as you see what your needs are to help you rebuild.”

Emerson told the group discussions already were under way to rebuild the levee, probably in a temporary fashion later this summer before a more permanent fix is put in place.

“If we rebuild it to the exact specs of the original, we should be able to move pretty quickly and avoid delays connected to getting environmental approvals and other issues,” she said. “The loss of all this property … I can’t imagine how much this hurts all of you and your families.”

Nobody farming today in the Bootheel ever saw the amount of water that engulfed the 35-mile floodway; it hasn’t been used to move water since the previous worst flood, in 1937, when the levee was blown its first time.
The Army Corps created the floodway, and its system of levees, following the great flood of 1927. It includes a mix of public and private land, with the Corps retaining easement rights if it ever determined it needed to move water through the area to help relieve pressure on upstream communities.
After the first breach of the Birds Point levee last week, the water level at neighboring Cairo, Ill., dropped by slightly more than a foot the following morning. The city’s water level reached a record 61.7 feet shortly before the breaching; as of the end of last week, the level was back down to 59.5 feet, the previous record level set in 1937.

Breaching the levee was a painful decision to execute, said Maj. Gen. Michael J. Walsh, president of the Mississippi River Commission.

“So, with the tool that has withstood many tests – the test of operation in 1937; decades of challenges that resulted in the 1986 Operation Plan; reviews and numerous unsuccessful court challenges – I have to use this tool. I have to activate this floodway to help capture a significant percentage of the flow,” Walsh wrote in his letter announcing the levee decision.

“I don’t have to like it, but we must use everything we have in our possession, in the system to prevent a more catastrophic event.”

Missouri farmers and lawmakers never liked the option, and took the matter all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear the plaintiffs’ case. A handful of farmers at the Charleston, Mo., meeting said they were hopeful the Corps would have let nature take its course and tested the resiliency of the Birds Point levee. “We’ll never know now whether the water level would have topped the levee, but the breaching certainly did appear to help areas upstream,” Hagler said.

That’s about the only positive farmer Ray Presson takes away. “We hope that by blowing the levee that it did help somebody. It didn’t help us much, for sure,” said Presson, who farms approximately 2,400 acres.

He had about 550 acres of wheat he planted in October destroyed, and doesn’t believe his land will be ready for spring corn planting, but he’s still hopeful he’ll be able to plant soybeans at some point this season.

“We have to be optimistic. We’re trying to look ahead, to look forward, because at some point this will drain,” Presson said.

How much time that will take is the question; Hagler estimated the loss of one season’s crop from the approximate 130,000 acres of farmland in the Bootheel would mean a loss of about $500 million to local and state economies.
In addition to crop insurance for grain already planted and destroyed, farmers also could be eligible for prevented planting payments, Hagler said. The USDA’s Emergency Conservation Program also can provide emergency funding to restore cropland damaged by natural disasters, and once the region is declared a federal disaster zone, low-interest loans capped at no more than 3 percent become available, he noted.

In a joint statement, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate took note of the significant amount of rain that led to this spring’s record flood. Before the levee was blown, they wrote, about 65 percent of the land in the floodway already was underwater.

“FEMA and USDA had long been preparing for, and are now ready, to support the states so they can help begin the road to recovery as quickly as possible. In anticipation that assistance may be needed, a FEMA liaison officer is already on the ground in Missouri’s emergency operations center and is ready to support the state in their efforts,” the agencies said in a statement.

 “USDA agencies that provide flood and disaster assistance are offering support to those in need and standing by to assist others. Although the farming families who live within the floodway have known that this day was a possibility and have remained resilient throughout, our hearts go out to them.”