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Photo: Canoeing the Missouri in Iowa. Courtesy Drew Winterer.

The Missouri River drains more than 500,000 square miles of North America. The huge amount of water draining annually from this landscape has carved one of America's greatest treasures. The river's valley-- from the Montana mountains through the Great Plains and into the Missouri hardwood forests-- offers sweeping vistas, dramatic bluffs and an ever changing river-bottom. American travelers have flocked to the Missouri and its stunning valleys since long before Lewis and Clark. This mighty, muddy river has provided transportation, habitat and food for humans and wildlife for thousands of years. The explorers found prime Missouri River fishing in the corner of present-day South Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa. Here, where the important tributaries of the Big Sioux and the Niobrara join the Missouri, Goodrich brought scores of catfish, pike and sauger home nightly. Of the catfish, Clark wrote, "those fish is so plent[iful] that we catch them at any time and place in the river."

Conservation Update It's been nearly 200 years since Lewis and Clark made their famous trip westward. On their way, the explorers paddled up the Missouri through a land of abundance, where birds darkened the sky and herds of bison grazed. The river was crowded with fish and rimmed with habitat for birds and small mammals. Today, the explorers would hardly recognize the Missouri River. After years of engineering, the natural systems of the river have been disrupted. The Missouri-America's longest river-is in dire straits. A series of dams, built by the Corps of Engineers and managed for a dwindling barge industry, block the natural flow of the river and threaten the survival of three species. Without the natural water flows that provide sandbars for nesting birds and spawning grounds for fish, the pallid sturgeon, the interior least tern, and the piping plover will be pushed to extinction. A recent study by the National Academy of Sciences confirms that time is running out for the Missouri. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released its final Environmental Impact Statement in 2002 and was scheduled to implement a new "Master Manual" for management of the river, which could have included improved flows for habitat and species protection. However, in Spring 2003, the Corps failed to meet its self-imposed deadline and has taken no action since then, leaving the river's fate and endangered species at risk. As a result of the status quo, several conservation organizations have sued the Corps and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The groups hope that the overwhelming scientific, economic, and legal evidence that supports restoring more natural flows to the Missouri will compel the federal court to order an end to the nearly 14 years of delay in dam operation changes by the Army Corps of Engineers. The Sierra Club advocates for flexible flows on the Missouri so that the river will better mimic its natural state to provide healthy habitat for endangered species and recreationists. Who to contact: The "East River" South Dakota Sierra Club Office 231 S Phillips Ave, Ste. 365 Sioux Falls, SD 57104 605-331-6001 tracie.weber@sierraclub.org Find out more: Missouri Wild and Scenic River Sierra Club South Dakota Chapter Living River Group Other resources: South Dakota's Fishing Index