The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is hosting two scoping webinars on September 11th and 18th to listen and solicit comments on the Missouri River Recovery Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Participants are encouraged to attend one or both webinars, which will be held from 3:00 to 4:30 p.m. (CDT) on both days.
The Missouri River Recovery Program (MRRP) combines implementation requirements of the 2003 Missouri River Biological Opinion and the Bank Stabilization and Navigation Project Fish and Wildlife Mitigation project. To comply with National Environmental Policy Act requirements, the Corps will assess programmatic effects and develop a range of alternatives for the program. The Management Plan and EIS also will provide an evaluation of the necessity and effectiveness of actions contained in the Biological Opinion.
The Management Plan and EIS will take about three years to complete. The MRRP allows the Corps to continue operation of the Missouri River Basin projects for all of its authorized purposes and to achieve multiple benefits.
Information collected from the Corps’ monitoring efforts will be used to evaluate the reasonableness, effectiveness and the programmatic impacts of its current actions and refine or change those actions as appropriate. Consistent with BiOp requirements, a definitive adaptive management process will be developed to ensure the flexibility needed to adjust actions based on continued monitoring to avoid jeopardy of the listed species, without pursuing measures that do not prove effective.
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Press Release, August 28, 2013