WASHINGTON, D.C. — An Iowa Congressman with bipartisan support has filed legislation he says will increase reservoir space along the Missouri River, to guard against future flood damage.

U.S. Rep. Steve King, a Republican from Kiran, Iowa, filed the legislation last week. It calls on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to alter its flood control plan for the Missouri River basin so additional reservoir space is added and future flooding threats downstream are eased.

“The severity of this year’s flood shows that the Corps of Engineers’ existing flood control model needs to be changed,” King said. “My legislation requires the Corps to increase the amount of storage space in the reservoir system so that it will be better able to prevent serious downstream flooding from occurring in the future.

“The bill is a common-sense solution to a serious problem, and I am grateful for the strong support it has received from my colleagues in Missouri River states.”

Record snowmelt and heavy rains this spring produced record levels of flooding all along the Missouri this summer; water didn’t recede to within the banks of the river until late August this year.

The Corps’ main plan for handling the Missouri consists of six large dams in Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota. The plan is based on flooding that occurred in 1881, an event that stood as the record until this year.

Based primarily on the heavy and late snowmelt from the Rockies, the Corps stated it had no choice but to open up the dams and let water flow at twice the normal rate through mid-August to relieve flood threats upstream. It displaced hundreds of people and flooded more than 560,000 acres of land over seven states, with about three-quarters of it farmland.

Flood damages along the Missouri, as well as along the Mississippi River, could approach $1 billion, a Corps spokesman said. Missouri Democrat Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, one of the bill’s cosponsors, said the legislation should be moved fast through Congress.

“This summer, tens of thousands of people from Montana to Missouri were affected by record-breaking floods,” Cleaver said. “This bipartisan bill, which I am proud to cosponsor, would help change the way we prepare for floods, bringing us out of the 19th century and into the 21st.

“While we cannot anticipate each and every natural disaster, we must enhance and update the preventative measures and management plans we have in place today.”

The bill requires the Corps not only determine how much reservoir space needs to be increased to handle a similar flood event as the one from this year, and to increase that space accordingly, but also requires the Corps to adjust the use of such space each year based on anticipated snowmelt for that season.

One of King’s colleagues in Iowa, Democrat Rep. Leonard Boswell, said he’ll push for the bill’s approval.

“Politics aside, when it comes to helping affected communities and flood victims in Iowa, our delegation comes together to do what is necessary and what is needed,” he said. “As a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Corps of Engineers, I will do whatever I can to help move this bill forward.

“The flooding that we have witnessed is proof that the current flood control storage is inadequate, and we must work together to ensure that we reduce the damage caused when the Missouri River floods.”