The Endangered Pallid Sturgeon

Throughout the country, the US Army Corps of Engineers is struggling to find compromises with environmental groups on the management of waterways. One perpetual headache is how to regulate the flow of the Missouri River. The corps tries to satisfy the requirements of industry and the environmentalists even when they are mutually exclusive. It's a no-win, and always political, situation.

Industry needs the Missouri River to be navigable, therefore, a sustained flow of water is necessary. Environmental activist groups, led by the powerful US Fish and Wildlife Service wielding the hammer called the Endangered Species Act, do not give a hoot about industry and care only that the pallid sturgeon is in danger. They maintain that the river must be regulated to mimic the river's natural ebb and flow in order to save the pallid sturgeon. This would mean seasonal levels of essentially no flow and, hence, no navigation.

Current status of this ongoing difference of opinion is explained in a recent article in the Omaha World Herald. Resolution of the issue will eventually be achieved, but it doesn't matter because, as soon as it is decided, the environmentalists will pull another animal or plant out of the inexhaustible endangered species hat to try and impede business. And, instead of the pallid sturgeon, there'll be concern about the habitat of the speckled mudfrog, the Great Plains brook minnow, the broad-bottomed albino crayfish, or some other such thing.

Personally, since we live in a democracy, I think the public should be able to vote on what to include on the Endangered Species List. As it is now, the environmentalists and bureaucrats in the government decide what to save and what not to save.