8014

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 8014
• Author: McDonald, W. J.
• Title: The Upper Basins' Political Conundrum
• USFW Year: 1997.
• USFW - Doc Type: A Deal is Not a Deal.
• Copyright Material: NO

1
The Upper Basins' Political Conundrum: A Deal is Not a Deal
The Missouri River Basin: The Agreements and the Results
Introduction
The headwaters of the Missouri River lie in the Rocky Mountains of western
Montana and northwestern Wyoming. The river's basin drains ten states --
portions of those two states and of Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and
North Dakota; a very small area in the extreme southwestern corner of
Minnesota; nearly all of South Dakota; and the entirety of Nebraska.
The Missouri River Basin contrasts with the Colorado River Basin in two
significant regards. First, while the Colorado River Basin has a uniformly
arid climate, the Missouri River watershed extends from the arid climate of
the Great Plains in the western and northern portions of the basin to the
more humid climate found in Iowa, Missouri, and the eastern portions of
Kansas and Nebraska. Thus, irrigation is needed to sustain crop production
in the acid portion of the basin (Montana, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Colorado,
western Nebraska, and western Kansas), but not in the eastern portion of the
basin where rainfall is more plentiful and uniform.
Second, the natural, undepleted flows of the Missouri River are more than
four times greater than those of the Colorado River.100 For this and other
reasons, navigation on the lower Missouri has been a major factor in the
political history of this basin's development,toi unlike that of the Colorado.
On the other hand, both the lower Colorado and the lower Missouri have been
prone to devastating floods. To this extent, the history of upstream-
downstream conflicts in both basins share the attribute that lower basin
interests in both basins have been desirous of obtaining flood control
protection.
Unlike the Colorado River, the waters of the Missouri River have not been
apportioned on an interstate basis (by compact, decree of the U.S. Supreme
10° At the mouth of the Missouri River, undepleted natural flows are estimated to average
about 65 million acre-feet annually. J. THORSON, RIVER OF PROMISE, RIVER OF PERIL:
THE POLITICS OF MANAGING THE MISSOURI RIVER 14 (1994). This contrasts with
average annual virgin flows on the Colorado River of about 15 million acre-feet at Lee Ferry.
ioi For a complete history of navigation on the Missouri River, see J. FERRELL,
SOUNDINGS: ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF THE MISSOURI RIVER NAVIGATION
PROJECT (1996).
32

1

1

r
t