By Doreen Hannes
July 9, 2011
NewsWithViews.com

Bird’s Point Aftermath Isn’t Over

On May 2nd the Army Corps of Engineers blew a two-mile long hole on the north end of Bird’s Point Levee in southeastern Missouri. The levee was holding and doing its job, and the reason given for blowing this levee was to save the already evacuated town of Cairo, Illinois. Then early morning of May 3rd, they blew a “drain hole” in the southern section of the levee. Throughout this article, I ask that the reader keep the dimensions of this levee and the two mile wide hole in the levee in mind. The levee is 64 feet tall, about 200 feet across at the base, and the hole that was blown is now approximately 12 feet below the surrounding ground level. While much has been written about this levee’s destruction, not much has been written of the “on the ground” effects of the ACE action.

When ACE blew the one quarter mile long drain hole, it was only 12 hours after they blew the 2 mile wide hole on the north side of the levee. The water on the south side was still very, very high and instead of letting water out of the flooded area, it let more water in and created a tornado type vortex where the rushing waters met in the midst of the flood way. The influx of water across the two-mile wide blow-hole was estimated to be up to 4.1 million gallons per second. Official records indicate that the blowing of the levee dropped the river levels at Cairo, Illinois less than 1 foot in 24 hours.

The town of Cairo (pronounced Kay-Ro in the local vernacular) is home to approximately 2,800 people. The town is largely boarded up, and much is in poor repair, but still home to more people than the ones whose property was destroyed by the Bird’s Point levee detonation. However, productivity and national security should also factor into intentionally sacrificing one area for another area. When one looks at the aerial view in this video, you get a sense of the size variance between Cairo and the area flooded by the levee detonation. The land mass inundated by water from the blowing of Bird’s Point is approximately 200 square miles. The total landmass of Cairo is 9.1 square miles. There were roughly 100 homes and farms destroyed by the detonation of the levee.

With a myriad of reports from the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN) and even the USDA predicting food price increases and shortages this fall, the destruction of 200 square miles of some of the most fertile farmland in the world should do more than raise an eyebrow. As this story will demonstrate, the actual destruction of this farmland is much more than the loss of one growing season. If several professors get their way, this land may never again be productive farmland. They think it should be left to become wetlands. Considering the state of the national economy, they just may get their way.

Rebuilding the levee would be a monumental expense. While there is a 25 million dollar class action suit in progress against the Army Corps of Engineers by those whose properties and livelihoods were destroyed by the levee being blown, compensation for those filing suit is far from guaranteed.

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