Success Stories

ORAU Established as Third Party Science Neutral to Support Missouri River Project

In late 2009, Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) was selected as Third Party Science Neutral by the Missouri River Recovery Implementation Committee, also known as MRRIC. The job is to facilitate an independent science review for the 69-member stakeholder committee and its lead agency sponsors—the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

ORAU has established a six-member independent science advisory panel, also known as MR ISAP, to evaluate, over the next three years, several questions about how the Missouri River should be restored to a more natural condition.

The Missouri River is the longest river in the U.S. Formed by the convergence of the Madison and Jefferson Rivers in Montana, the Missouri River it empties (2,321 miles) into the Mississippi River near St. Louis, Mo., draining one-sixth of the U.S.

When Lewis and Clark explored the Missouri River in the early 1800s, it was a wide, shallow, muddy river that meandered through many channels and back waters providing a diversity of habitat for resident wildlife.

Beginning in the early 1900s the river was diked, channelized and leveed to provide a navigation channel and stable adjacent lands protecting utilities, transportation infrastructure and farm land.

The Flood Control Act of 1944 authorized six large dams on the river for flood control, navigation, irrigation, power generation, water supply, water quality, recreation, and fish and wildlife. The USACE was charged with optimizing development and utilization of the water resources to best serve the needs of the people.

The extensive alteration of the river’s form, and regulation of its flows, has contributed to losses in fish and wildlife populations. The fish—least tern, piping plover and pallid sturgeon—are now listed as threatened or endangered species. Cottonwood forests once dominant along the river have ceased reproduction; 51 of 67 additional native species have been rated as uncommon or decreasing; and aquatic insect diversity has declined by 70 percent.

To avoid jeopardizing the continued existence of the tern, plover and sturgeon, the FWS mandated restoration of a portion of suitable habitats and flow conditions necessary for protection of the three species. The many divergent and sometimes conflicting interests represented on the MRRIC are looking to the TPSN and MR ISAP to help determine how much restoration and where is necessary.

The ORAU team has recruited a riverine ecologist, geomorphologist, sturgeon specialist, tern and plover specialist, quantitative ecologist/modeler, and conservation biologist for the independent panel.

The TPSN and MR ISAP are off and running, and are currently reading over 5,000 pages of background materials, attending webinars by resource managers, monitoring teams and researchers on the Missouri River and drafting a report due for presentation to the MRRIC in July.

The first question the team is trying to answer is this: “What is the scientific state of knowledge regarding how much of a spring pulse (rise in river water level from snow melt) is necessary to cue sturgeon spawning, and to create and condition sand bars for tern and plover nesting?”

For more information on this review, visit the Missouri River Independent Science Panel website.

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