Western Iowans who are looking forward to boating season should be able to get out onto the Missouri River in a few weeks. The U-S Army Corps of Engineers is preparing the basin’s reservoirs for run-off season. Joel Knofczynski, a hydraulic engineer in the Corps’ Omaha office, says almost all of the flood pool is available behind the six, mainstem dams. “On December 18th, the reservoir system storage reached 56.1-million acre feet, which is at the base of the annual flood control zone,” he says. “This means that all the stored 2016 flood waters have been evacuated from the system.”

Knofczynski says they will soon start releasing water from Gavins Point Dam for the downstream navigation season. “Releases from Gavins Point are currently 17,000 cubic feet per second,” he says. “Releases will be stepped up beginning at or around March 19th to provide flow support for the 2017 navigation season. The navigation season will open on April 1st at the mouth near St. Louis.”

Knofczynski says the Corps is anticipating a full, eight-month navigation season on the Missouri. “Flows for this level of service are designed to provide a nine-foot-deep navigation channel with Gavins Point releases expected to range from the upper 20,000 to the lower 30,000 cubic feet per second this summer, depending on downstream conditions” he says. “Those releases will be reduced in response to downstream flooding, if necessary.”

Corps officials have said -no- spring flooding is anticipated. Also, there will -not- be a spring “pulse” for endangered species habitat this year and run-off is expected to be about 115-percent of normal.

(Radio Iowa)

While the thoughts of most Iowans are on the good things that spring brings, poultry producers are on the lookout for potential problems with bird flu. Cases of the two types of avian influenza have been found in Tennessee and Wisconsin, and Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey says it’s another reminder to be alert. Iowa took a massive hit from the bird flu two years ago when millions of chickens and turkeys had to be destroyed.

“Our producers have invested large amounts of effort and dollars into biosecurity trying to keep the disease away from their farms. From truck washes to limited access onto the farms, to lots of ways to try and keep the disease out,” Northey says. “So that was done from sometimes before the last outbreak, to immediately after the last outbreak.”

He says the news of the case that is highly contagious in Tennessee probably led to some uneasiness in Iowans. “I’m sure everybody is checking their biosecurity plans again. There is no guarantee to prevent a disease from being able to be exposed. And it’s obviously in the Mississippi flyway now in some wild birds — whether it’s a few or a lot, nobody knows. Everybody’s concerned while they continue the plans they have had in place,” Northey says.

Northey says there’s no reason for consumers to be concerned. “It’s important to remind everybody that food safety is not a concern. Go ahead and eat your eggs and eat your turkey meat and chicken meat, that’s not a concern. Producers are concerned about the health of their birds and they are doing everything that they can to keep their birds healthy,” according to Northey.

Thousands of chickens were destroyed at the Tennessee farm after the “highly pathogenic” variety of the disease was found there. Another bird flu outbreak was reported at a Wisconsin turkey farm but it was not the highly-pathogenic variety.

(Radio Iowa)