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Missouri River flooding in Rocheport in May 2019 (Courtesy: LG Patterson)

Corps to keep water releases into Missouri River high

(AP) – As predicted, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it plans to keep water releases into the lower Missouri River elevated, as runoff continues to keep upstream reservoirs full.

The Corps said in a news release Tuesday that water releases from Gavins Point Dam on the Nebraska-South Dakota border will remain at current levels, which – at 70,000 cubic feet per second – are more than double the average amount for this time of year.

The Corps says areas of Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota and Nebraska received two to three times the normal amount of rain in July.

July runoff in the upper basin was 7 million acre feet, more than twice the average. The Corps says this year’s upper basin total runoff is forecast at nearly 53 million acre feet, which would be the second highest total runoff in 121 years of record-keeping. Only the 61 million acre feet seen in 2011 would be more.

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