Missouri Farmers Sue Over Levee Breach; Feds Say Help Available

The dramatic, late-night demolition of a huge earthen levee sent chocolate-colored floodwaters pouring onto thousands of acres of Missouri farmland on May 3, easing the threat to a tiny Illinois town being menaced by the Mississippi River.

But the blast near Cairo, Ill., did nothing to ease the risk of more trouble downstream, where the mighty river is expected to rise to its highest levels since the 1920s in some parts of Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana.

A group of 25 southeast Missouri farmers is suing the federal government over its decision to blow a hole in a levee, causing their farmland and houses to flood.

Cape Girardeau attorney J. Michael Ponder filed the lawsuit May 3, less than 24 hours after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers detonated explosives on the Birds Point levee to ease pressure from the swelling Mississippi River.

The Southeast Missourian reports that the lawsuit claims that the government violated the farmers’ rights by taking their land without adequate compensation. The lawsuit seeks class-action status.

Ponder, who is from Charleston, says he has had cousins who were wiped out by the levee breach.

The corps has said that flowage easements attached to the farmers’ property deeds allowed them to breach the levee.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says insurance reimbursements will be available to flooded-out farmers in southeast Missouri.

Vilsack said that the reimbursements will be available “both this year and most likely next year” to farmers who had crop insurance for the land flooded by the intentional levee break at Birds Point.

Those without crop insurance won’t be able to recoup their losses unless they qualify for another government loan program.

Vilsack said other forms of government help will be available for livestock producers and tree farmers under agriculture programs designed to protect them after natural disasters. People who lost their houses may also be eligible for rural housing loans.

Officials say it could be late summer or early fall before all the water drains away from the land.