CAPE GIRARDEAU, Missouri (Reuters)– A federal judge on Thursday ended a hearing on plans by the federal government to blow a hole in a Mississippi River levee without issuing an immediate ruling or indicating when he might do so.
U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh, Jr. was listening to arguments over whether the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should breach the Birds Point levee to prevent flooding in Cairo, Illinois, an historic town of almost 3,000 residents.
A levee breach would flood 130,000 acres of Missouri farmland, which contain about 100 homes.
While attorneys for states that could be affected debated the issues of navigation and easement, the heart of the case, according to Limbaugh, was whether he had jurisdiction.
"I'm really concerned about my ability to get involved," the judge said.
The Corps had planned to decide this weekend whether to blow up the levee.
Missouri claims the action would damage the farmland, leaving a layer of silt that would take a generation to clear.
The Illinois Attorney General had intervened in the case on the side of the Corps, arguing it was more important to save Cairo than a rural area that had long been designated as a floodway.
"The city of Cairo is on the verge of being the next 9th Ward of New Orleans," Mayor Judson Childs had said in a statement, referring to an area devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
(Reporting by Miriam Moynihan; Editing by Jerry Norton)
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий