Budget released but below average upper Missouri basin snowpack testing Corps, endangered species

The US Army Corps of Engineers counts almost 90,000 dams in its database and on the western side of the Continental Divide the Snake River through Idaho, Oregon and Washington that was dammed to deny Indigenous salmon fishing is now the 4th most endangered as drought seizes the region.

Following historic progress made under the President’s leadership—with over 14 million jobs added since the President took office and inflation down two-thirds from its peak—the Budget protects and builds on this progress with proposals for responsible, pro-growth investments in America and the American people. Overall, the President's Budget for FY 2025 for the Army Civil Works program reflects the Administration's priorities to strengthen the supply chain and grow the nation's economy, decrease climate risk for communities and increase ecosystem resilience to climate change based on the best available science, and promote environmental justice in underserved and overburdened communities and Tribal Nations in line with the Justice40 initiative and creating good paying jobs that provide the free and fair chance to join a union and collectively bargain. The FY 2025 Budget investments will work to confront climate change by reducing flood risk and restoring ecosystems. The Corps is working to integrate climate preparedness and climate resilience planning in all of its activities, such as by helping communities reduce their potential vulnerabilities to the effects of climate change and variability. [Statement by Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works on the President’s Fiscal Year 2025 Budget]

On the eastern slope Spring runoff allows pallid sturgeon in Yellowstone tributaries like the Powder and Tongue Rivers to spawn but the Corps canceled the Spring Pulse below Lewis and Clark Lake in 2022 due to inadequate runoff into the Missouri River.

This Spring a dry winter and low mountain snowpacks are driving the Corps to release storage in the Missouri River mainstem dams hoping to prop up the navigation season at the risk of providing less water for hydroelectric generation.

The 2024 calendar year runoff forecast above Sioux City is 17.0 MAF, 66% of average. The runoff forecast is based on current soil moisture conditions, plains snowpack, mountain snowpack, and long-term precipitation and temperature outlooks. Beginning in mid-March, releases from Gavins Point Dam will be adjusted to provide flow support for Missouri River navigation. Navigation flow support for the Missouri River is expected to be at 500 cubic feet-per-second below full service for the first half of the 2024 season, which begins April 1 at the mouth of the river near St. Louis, Missouri. The six mainstem power plants generated 467 million kWh of electricity in February. Typical energy generation for February is 618 million kWh. Forecast generation for 2024 is 8.3 billion kWh compared to the long-term average of 9.4 billion kWh. [Despite early runoff, upper basin runoff forecast below average; Gavins Point releases to increase for navigation flow support]

Endangered pallid sturgeon, paddlefish, catfish and most other aquatic organisms cope with lethal levels of mercury throughout the South Dakota portion of the Missouri River so as those species are extirpated or even go extinct zebra mussels will colonize the system. Lewis and Clark Lake is at least thirty percent full of toxic sediment but that impoundment and Lake Sharpe can’t spend money fast enough to reverse the infestation of the imported bivalves in hydroelectric equipment and water courses.