Written by: Matt Bunk
Federal water managers had to make a decision two months ago as Lake Sakakawea began rising into the flood-pool zone and snow measurements came in higher than normal: increase water releases from the dam to ensure greater storage capacity for spring runoff or store more water to satisfy a series of congressional requirements.
For the Army Corps of Engineers, that’s not much of a choice.
In her first one-on-one interview since the river overflowed its banks in Bismarck-Mandan, Jody Farhat, the chief water manager for the Missouri River reservoir system, said her agency was bound by federal regulations to make sure water levels were high enough during the spring to supply a range of needs. After all, flood control is only one of many functions of the six dams that were built between the 1930s and the 1960s to hold water at points along the river from Montana to Missouri.
“If we were only managing for flood control it would be easy. We would just drain the reservoirs,” Farhat told the Great Plains Examiner on Friday. “But there are many interests that want us to hold water for all the things the water supplies … and Congress doesn’t give us a bye on any of them. Regardless of whether it’s a high-water year or low-water year, we are supposed to provide water for all of the authorized purposes.”
The way Farhat explains it, the flood that has displaced thousands of homeowners along the river this year was the result of a wild rainy season and strict requirements to do things by the book. The master manual that guides the Corps of Engineers’ water-management decisions requires special considerations for flood control, navigation, water supply, water quality, hydropower, irrigation, recreation and fish and wildlife. The document, last updated in 2004, is intended to help the Corps of Engineers balance all of those sometimes-conflicting objectives.
The problem is the book didn’t account for the possibility of record-shattering amounts of rain in May. It also didn’t account for estimates that showed higher-than-average snowpack in the mountains to the northwest. So, neither did the Corps of Engineers’ water managers – until it was too late.
“We reached right where we needed to be,” Farhat said, referring to the 1838 feet of water in Lake Sakakawea on March 20. “The way the manual is written that’s always the target. It’s not like we have a target here or there depending on wet or dry years.”
“We are getting questions like, ‘You saw the snow, so why didn’t you release more?’” she added. “In the manual it doesn’t make a difference.”
Last week, Sen. John Hoeven and other politicians representing districts along the river called for a review of the master manual after the flood subsides. They want the Corps of Engineers to determine if changes are needed to provide better flood protection. A few of the same politicians, including Hoeven, have lobbied the Corps of Engineers in years past to keep water levels higher during the spring.
“Folks in North Dakota like the water levels high because draught could be coming,” Farhat said. “They like to make sure we have enough water in there and really want us to use the manual as the guiding document and not release more water than it tells us to.”
The period between March 20 and May 6 is likely to get the most attention in what the military calls an “after-action review.” During that span, the Corps of Engineers reduced the amount of water being released from the dam and allowed Lake Sakakawea to rise about eight feet higher than normal during that time of year.
Farhat said the ice had receded from the river by March 24 or sooner, which was a signal that the river could hold more water. But instead of increasing the releases from Garrison Dam, the Corps of Engineers reduced the amount of water being released to make way for runoff from snow in the plains that spills into the tributaries flowing into the Missouri River, she said. The average rate of releases from the dam during the next 45 days was about 16,000 cubic feet per second.
“The reason was we wanted to make room for snowmelt, whenever it came,” Farhat said. “We didn’t know when it would warm up.”
But the snow didn’t melt as quickly as the Corps of Engineers had expected. During most of April, the river flowed through Bismarck-Mandan at eight feet or less. At one point early in the month, it dipped to just more than six-feet deep.
For most of spring, the Corps of Engineers was working with estimates that showed slightly higher-than-average snowpack in the mountains, Farhat said. At the end of April, however, water managers realized they may have to increase releases from the dam at rates not seen since 1997 because the mountains were still holding about 35 percent more snowpack than normal and the reservoir had filled to within 10 feet of the dam’s capacity.
“The snow was incredible this year,” Farhat said. “By the first of May we were going ‘Holy smokes, this is not just a little-above-normal water year. It’s way above normal.’”
Around the same time, the Corps of Engineers notified the Fish and Wildlife Service that all plans to accommodate the habitat of federally protected piping plovers and least terns had to be called off, according to interviews with officials from both agencies. Both bird species use bare sandbars along the Missouri River during their nesting season from May until August, and the Corps of Engineers had been instructed to keep water releases low prior to and during that period to create more sandbar acreage.
In mid-May, the Corps of Engineers coordinated a series of conference calls with state and local officials in North Dakota to warn them that more water would be released from the dam to free up space in the reservoir for the snow runoff, Farhat said. During the first call on May 16, the Corps of Engineers predicted releases from the dam would reach a peak of 50,000 cubic feet per second.
But it just kept raining in Montana, forcing the Yellowstone River to flow harder and faster into the Missouri River than at any other time in recrded history. By May 20, Lake Sakakawea had risen to within five feet of the all-time record set during the 1975 flood and the Corps of Engineers had told North Dakota officials to prepare for near-record releases from Garrison dam of about 60,000 cubic feet per second.
“Then that’s the week we got 10 inches of rain in Montana, so all bets were off,” Farhat said.
Release estimates changed rapidly after that, from 70,000 cubic feet per second on May 23 to 150,000 cubic feet per second on May 28. Part of the reason for the wide swing, Farhat said, was that the Corps of Engineers on May 25 first began studying the combined effects of the lingering rainstorms and the runoff from snowmelt.
When the Corps raised the release estimates to 80,000 cubic feet per second on May 24, “we were just trying to get past the rainfall event,” Farhat said. “But the next day we re-ran our models to figure out what we were going to do with that snowmelt. And because of that one rain event it filled our reservoirs to almost the top, and we didn’t have the flexibility to store that runoff from snowmelt. We needed a bigger drain or snowmelt would spill over the edge.”
The spillway at Garrison Dam became that bigger drain on June 1 when it opened for the first time. Within days, the Missouri River had reached its flood-stage depth of 16 feet at the monitoring station in Bismarck-Mandan and more than 700 homeowners had evacuated. The river is expected to reach a depth of 19 feet or more later this month.
Even now, though, Farhat says there wasn’t much she could have done to prevent the flood, given the constraints of the master manual. With the Corps of Engineers being part of the Army, Farhat said she expects an after-action review and hopes it will reveal “what we could have done differently.”
“I wish I could have gone up on releases sooner, and I wish I wouldn’t have to go as high. But I think we made the right choice given all of the authorized purposes,” she said. “If this flood event changes the nation’s view of how the reservoirs need to be managed – more for flood control – the only way to do that is provide less service to all those authorized purposes.”
This entry was posted in Flood, NEWS CATEGORIES, Slideshow and tagged Bismarck, Garrison Dam, Jody Farhat, Lake Sakakawea, Mandan, Missouri River flood, piping plovers, piping plovers and flood. Bookmark the permalink.She has taken responsibility for the decisions she was legally allowed to make. She overrode the plover restriction on outflow immediately after the rainfall was taken into account, she took the numbers and warned us in Bismarck to be ready for the water that was coming, then it rained again, so the number went up, then it rained again, so the number went up, then it rained again, so the number went up.
Explain to me which choice she made that was wrong? Or are you just venting? Professional hydrologists made that manual and by the law she can’t drop the lake further than that manual says.
Jody Farhat needs a new job. She obviously is not capable of a common sense decision. Sometimes situations demand closing the book and using common sense. I’m sure she could have received permission from someone above in this critical situation. She needs to go!
Great story! It’s nice to finally get some answers, even if they are discouraging.
I don’t know if the other commentators lived here during the drought when virtually all of our state and federal legislators and residents were screaming bloody murder because the Corp continued to release water for downstream navigation and other purposes. We’re part of the reason the Manual was changed to hold onto more water in the upstream reservoirs. That makes us, the people of this state and other upstream states, are also responsible for this disaster. We screamed at them then, and so did our elected representatives (after all, upstream recreation is easily as important as downstream navigation and flood control) and they changed the book because we are their employers. So let’s all remember this controlled flood, and recognize that there are really important uses for these dams, and then there are the ones that really don’t matter so much when you get right down to it. Or blow them all up and let the river take us back to the pre-dam era. Then the Corp might not look so bad. (No, I don’t work for the Corp, and neither does anyone I know.)
Jean, with your feeble attempt to stick up for the Corp, you precisely make the point of how inept they were in this case. You blame the lawmakers in ND and upstream for changing the manual to hold more water? Really? Maybe I’m out of touch, but I don’t recall much action on that. I remember the corp telling us basically ‘sorry but barge traffic is more important’……The main point is here, is back then there indeed was a drought, and they should reacted a little different then. Most boat ramps on Lake Sakakawea were unusable and a few cities including Newtown and Fort Yates were in danger of not getting water supply for thier towns, as their intake pipes would soon be out of the water. The corp could have used some common sense then too, just as now. What if they would have thought out of the box and realized that there was a HUGE amount of snow in MT, and the lake was already close to full. Yes, the rain is the “straw that broke the camle’s back”, but they really could have included that into thier projections……This is a mess and it could have handled with a little more out of the box thinking.
Joe, the manual was completely rewritten because of the competing interests and the lawsuits they brought. Because each state filed lawsuits to represent its own interests, at the expense of all others, (and conveniently forgot about flood control, I might add) and because there are lots of states in the MO basin, the Corps is required to operate based on the manual. Maybe that will change now.
– from the Bismarck Tribune, May 2003 about the drought and the dam:
“Because of a regional fight over water, it seems like court judges have more to do with how fast water is released from the dam than does the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and they run the place.”
“When judges order a cutback in water releases from the dam – like one did in North Dakota two weeks ago – the crew at the dam responds instantly.”
“The injunction followed a lawsuit in which North Dakota claims the low water level behind the dam in Lake Sakakawea violates the state’s Clean Water Act.”
“Bentz said the Garrison Dam crew, made up of local men and women, doesn’t like the low lake level any more than the public.”
“Keasling said lawyers are all over dam operations these days. Last year, there were nine lawsuits filed against the corps from states up and down the river. Lawyers huddled with the corps daily to help figure out water release orders for the six-dam system up and down the Missouri River.
“It was almost impossible,” Keasling said.”
There’s lots more at the Tribune: http://www.bismarcktribune.com/news/local/article_8523920a-170d-504f-9591-c62b45f4227e.html
Jean, thanks for the most level-headed piece of writing I have seen yet on this. My family had to evacuate our home in Dakota Dunes, SD because of this flood and every day we pray that the levee holds until mid-August so we don’t lose it. This flood is devastating to all of us affected by it, and most didn’t have flood insurance because we were so far away from the river. Hopefully some major changes will come. In the meantime, we’re dealing with a monster down here.
Sorry for your losses, Teacher. We are struggling up here too, and I cry every time I watch the news. People are hurting, and there’s so little we can do. Wish you the best.
Jean,
You are right – you can’t please everyone all the time is this instance. I’m sure we have intelligent and capable folks at the Corp. They don’t have a crystal ball to read the future.
Jean you have given the best respomse. THANK YOU
This is the problem with things today if it doesnot say it in a book then it shouldnt happen!!! WEll guess where reading a book has got them in this instance!!! Do people not know how to think out of a box and just because the book say does that mean Mother nature read that same book, but when people are losing their homes and their jobs, People who are employed by corp will continue to have their homes and their jobs.
I think we should assign the river system to the Mary Stark 4th grade class as a project. I firmly think they could do a better job and we would not have to pay them. If all else fails I’m sure they would have a better explanation of what went wrong instead of the normal gov’t excuses.
‘like’
Sounds like Jody Fart-hat needs a job that she can stick strictly to the book.. something like a Wal-Mart greeter or work at Burger King where she can stick to the procedure manual.
Ding fries are done
Ding fries are done
Farhat refuses to admit that if you read the Master Manual, the Corps is given discretion in cases of exigent circumstances. I hope she and her superiors are taken to task for their oversight.
Like when she was faced with “exigent circumstances”(sic) of that rain and overrode the plover restrictions and started dumping water?
She is not a hydrologist(I assume), she doesn’t have the expertise to override the manual except in extreme situations. Do you want her to start guessing and just doing whatever she feels like?
First of all I hope Jody Farhat is a hydrologist and if not then maybe someone that does have the expertise to override the manual should be in that position. Plus this is no time to be making assumptions like you did. The public needs real facts from real reporters who know that research cannot be replaced by assumptions. I guess what you’re saying here is that we should all just be quiet and trust that the federal gov’t always does the right thing. Unfortunately the gov’t is never perfect and tends to make a lot of mistakes. The only way the public can make informed changes in gov’t is to know the facts. That’s what this story provides. If you want to believe that federal officials never make any mistakes than go read the tribune.
I do not think WRIGS is venting at all. Wrigs points out the obvious, that this official is hiding behind a manual and government regulations that as we all know cater to all the wrong interest groups.
Rivers were damned to facilitate barge traffic and flood control. Congress has added numerous other interests to the manual which effectively has taken common sense out of the equation. We are now at the mercy of the piping plover’s breeding right. We have assigned rights to animals and special interests over people.
Read the article! 700 people evacuated, I live on Lake Waconda in Nebraska 280 households evacuated. We have a federally certified levee, but the odds of withstanding record levels against the levee for months at a time are slim to none.
We haven’t had issues for 20 + years and now with all the changes made by congress over the last 5 or so we have flooding and incompetence at the Army Corps Of Engineers, because they are following the book.
TERM LIMITS, get congress fixed. Greg, quite being an apologist!
I think, at this point, we can all agree that we have to choose flood control as the main purpose for these dams, but please, read this:
“….at no time during the past year has the system been operated for endangered or other native or introduced species. Our priority has been flood risk reduction.”
“We’ve dispatched teams of experts all along the basin to construct temporary levees. We’ve issued millions of sandbags and numerous pumps to support local flood fight efforts, avoid loss of life, minimize damages and help impacted communities. We remain in close collaboration with city, county, state and federal agencies, the Tribes and congressional representatives and we will continue to do everything in our ability to assist communities throughout the duration of the Flood of 2011.”
Brig. Gen. John R. McMahon, Northwestern Division, US Army Corps of Engineers, in an Op Ed piece written for the Examiner on June 10 of this year.
I can only guess, but given the number of competing lawsuits, each with their own interest: upstream recreation, downstream navigation, hydroelectric power, water supply, water quality, irrigation, endangered species, and we hope, flood control, that led to the current version of the manual, I’d bet the Corps actually has been given very little flexibility in how it runs the river. Should it have more? – obviously, but each state and vested interest wants to ensure it will get its needs met, so they don’t look out for the big picture, and make backroom deals instead.
And if our government is broken, it’s because we broke it, by looking out only for ourselves, and not for our country as a whole. We elect the same people over and over because they bring home the bacon, or promise us lower taxes, but we never complain when the money comes to our state or town as road projects or community development, or tax refunds, only when it goes to someone else. We need to do better.
http://greatplainsexaminer.com/2011/06/10/master-manual-guides-regulation-of-missouri-river/
http://www.bismarcktribune.com/news/local/article_8523920a-170d-504f-9591-c62b45f4227e.html
I am willing to bet Farhart’s home was not at risk to be lost. Take some responsibility for your bad judgment and resign !
Given that she lives further down the river in Omaha, NE, I’ll guess she has friends and co-workers who are losing the flood battle, along with many strangers in that city.
I can’t see any thing that they did as being unreasonable. Take into account that the rain was unprecedented and that they had enough space to handle everything without that rain event.
Everything after that must be reaction, there was no way at all to plan for that. Once you understand that there is no way to plan for an event that is 500% outside of the average you pretty much lose the right to criticize them about not having that foresight.
For what was possible to see they were ready, and they had a good margin of safety according to the history of the dams.
What would you suggest that they did differently? I mean, seriously it’s a 500 year rain event that put more water into the dam than they get in two years. If they planned for this, which they would have to do every year, the lake would have to stay at 1820 (it was at 1807 at it’s low point in 2007).
I’m relieved to see some of these comments. In my opinion stories like this are key to the betterment of this country. A lot of times we act like sheep and don’t ask questions anymore. Understand that it is not an attack on any individual rather a necessary tool in making sure the public has a voice. All too often we don’t question mistakes made by people in high responsibility positions. Accepting jobs of this nature means you will have a responsibilty to the community. Great job our community needs to have a voice that can be heard. Keep up the great work we appreciate it.
Great article. I’m not sure why this is so hard. If you are in the middle of a drought, hold a little more water in the dam. If you are in the middle of a crazy wet weather pattern, don’t hold as much water. WE AREN’T IN A DROUGHT. If the Corps is just going to follow a manual, let’s replace them with a computer. I can program this for them (for a fee of course, but probably less that a couple years of Jody’s salary). I could even build the program to take into account weather patterns and snow pack. But, it would never be enough – there will always be an exceptional circumstance – that is why we put a human in charge. We want someone capable of critical thinking.
Hey Jody – News Flash! It doesn’t take 3 months of record release rates to reduce the water levels caused by 10″ of rain. You guys are using the rainfall amounts as an excuse for the situation when the actual cause of the problem was the record snow pack…. oh by the way…. which you had on record the whole time. Kudo’s to you for being creative. Shame on you for not having the capacity to think outside the box.
…or the ‘master manual’ in this case.
The manual on how to drive a car says to stay on the right side of the road. But if A SEMI HEADED TOWARD YOU.. you swerve to miss it! Alan is correct, critical thinking is necessary.
Matt Bunk’s reporting is easily the most informed and in depth that I’ve seen on the events leading up to this flood.
One thing to look into is the April flows at Omaha, among other downstream sites. (USGS data). The mean (average) flow in April at Omaha was about 66,000 cfs. Only 1997 was higher, since Gavins Point dam closed in 1953. Given those conditions, with room in the reservoirs, the Corps has to hold back water. The June rise from mtn. snowpack is two months away at that point.
The Corps has to follow its manual. For it to start raising flows at Omaha in April, when there’s space in the reservoirs, they’d have a lot of explaining to do to the people of Omaha.
This year shows that the Corps’ mandate for flood control does not mean flood prevention. Sites below dams are last in line for flooding, but in an extreme year they are in line all the same. The system worked as designed, holding back water as long as possible before letting it out in a controlled flood. If there’s a flaw in the system, it’s that the March 1 target for reservoir storage is too high. It’s 57 million acre feet. The Corps met that target this year. After 1997, the Corps considered a proposal by downstream states to reduce that target to 55 MAF. It’s a simple solution that would leave more room at the top of the pools for spring run-off. The proposal went nowhere. I doubt many upstream states, with their love for high pools, backed the idea. They might embrace it now.
I am one of the people that is displaced because of ” following Manual ” with two small children. Someone needs to be held responsible for what has happened, this water did not happen over night, we have been in a wet cycle for a few years already. Yes some people had time to prepare for the water HOWEVER the water has taken alot of homes in my area even with a week of working from early morning to 1 am to try to save our homes. Even it the flood could not of been prevented, if better planning and some thinking would have been done we could of at least had a better fighting chance. As a veteran the military has manuals for all kinds of stuff, BUT when things start to happen you dont refer to the manual you do what you have to and worry about the manual later.
Great work, Mr. Bunk! Here’s my question: if Farhat can notify Henry Maddux that things are looking bad in late April, why isn’t the public notified at the same time? If notice of flooding had happened at THAT time, people could have gotten flood insurance and it would have been effective by June 1, FEMA’s official start date to the flood event. Thirty days notice (the waiting period for federal flood insurance) would have made an ENORMOUS difference to thousands of us watching levees hold the water back from our homes.
Farhat states the master manual is intended to “help”the corp manage the river. What happened to common sense. The ice was gone on March 24 so they “lowered” the release for 45 days, It was the 1st of May before they realized
there was alot of snow (doesn’t anyone of these people in charge ever watch a weather map?) The wheels of government turn slowly – in mid May they start releasing higher levels. Yes they got alot of rain after that but they already had a problem this is just an easy excuse. They should have done something long before it got to that point. It snows every winter and melts every spring doesn”t take a genius to figure that out. Someone was asleep with their “master Manual”
So now thousands of acres are under water, lives disrupted, homes ruined, business closed, but I for one am certainly glad we went by that “master Manual”
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Matt: This afternoon (6/21) during the Minot press conference, they said the Army Corps has received approval from Congress to deviate from normal management of Lake Darling to draw down to low levels. Do you think this has anything to do with the “master manual” or is it a different issue? If it does mean they received approval to deviate from the manual, why wasn’t this done for the Missouri River when the Corps discovered the trouble in store for Bismarck/Mandan?
Mother Nature 1; Corps of Engineers 0. Glad to see all the Monday Morning Quarterbacks who all apparently have hydrology degrees and the expertise it takes to manage a multi-million acreage of water where management is guided by Congress, who is elected by us all. Granted Jody probably should have done some earlier collaboration with her superiors to determine a better way, but unless you’ve worked in or with *any* government agency, you should realize that most ‘manuals’ are the how-it-should-be-done way. Not an excuse, mind you, just the government way of thinking (or not).
That is exactly why we shouldn’t have the government running the show. Just go to your local DMV or Post Office to see the effeciency of our government at work. And now we can all look forward to the same “Manual Following” when it comes to our healthcare. If Farhat continues to oversee this operation who is to say this won’t happen next year since she is incapable of critical thinking. If she were working for a private company she would not (and should not) have a job right now!!!
I hope that some of the people on here are not the same ones that want more Gov. to intrude into our lives!! I am an ex service member and worked for a Gov entity for some time. I can tell you the Gov has a manual for everything!! If you don’t follow the manual Congress will have your behind!! But if you follow the manual and as in this case something goes wrong, Congress will still pull you up In front of a Committee and Have your behind. The very same people that wrote or approved the manual And ordered you to follow it will ask you why did’nt you do some thing else. A classic case of how the Gov works or in situations like this how it will fail most of the time!! Yher is no room for independant thought in Government!!
Too true, John T – that’s just what’s happening now. We’re all looking for someone to blame for our misery. “The flogging will continue until morale improves.”
Now you know why AMERICA is in the shape it is in. Idiots from the top down and that goes for the tip top of the US Government- Imbiciles each and everyone and mostly criminals to boot. She may be book smart but thats as far as it goes– Just like anyone who reads a teleprompter– or works at the Federal Reserve.
I am Positive she will get a big promotion– its the Peter Principle –AKA as— FARHAT FLOATS………
Bottom line is, it didn’t have to happen. What more needs to be said?
Apparently the least terns and piping plovers in our area are smarter than most. They moved to higher ground. I wish I could have picked up my home and followed them. I can just hear the conversation between the birds as they look down on the flooded river: “I wonder what kind of a bird brain is responsible for this?”
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How disheartening. This director refuses to take responsibility because she was following guidelines in a manual. I find her actions to be a common theme in the fed govt. The attitude of just doing the status quo so as to not cause waves (no pun intended) is deplorable. Obviously she was hired by someone because they thought she had the necessary qualifications to be an effective leader. What I gleaned from her was that a chimp could manage the Missouri river basin. It is absolutely disgusting that she thinks that her actions are acceptable. Whatever happened to using critical thinking skills.