Missouri Senators Roy Blunt and Claire McCaskill met with representatives from the Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Army Corps of Engineers earlier this week to talk about the long-delayed St. Johns Bayou levee project.
Blunt says the different agencies cannot agree on how many acres of wetland would be affected by the project that fills in a 1,500 foot gap in the Mississippi River levee near New Madrid.
“We largely discussed the months that have been spent now with the government fighting the government. We discussed the fact that one government agency said there are 500 acres of wetlands. The EPA said at one point they were 118,000 acres,” Blunt said.
Both Senators Blunt and McCaskill say the Army Corps will provide a progress report by March 15.
“Trying to get the government to agree on the facts shouldn’t be a problem,”Blunt said. “But I think that meeting largely drove a conclusion that they need to agree on the facts even if they don’t agree on the proposal from the Corps of Engineers in Vicksburg.”
The project has been in limbo since a judge ruled its Environmental Impact Statement was insufficient in 2007. The project was originally proposed in the 1950’s.
