LINCOLN, NEB. ? Nebraska is considering whether to intervene in a lawsuit filed by five companies over the flow of water on the Missouri River.

The companies, which provide or use barge service, want to force the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to keep enough water flowing in the Missouri’s shipping channel, which extends from Sioux City, Iowa, to St. Louis.

Nebraska Assistant Atty. Gen. Dave Cookson said a decision to intervene in the lawsuit could come as soon as next week.

Nebraska Atty. Gen. Jon Bruning has said the state needs to protect its interests in the river, which include maintaining adequate water for power plants, barge traffic, recreation, wildlife, irrigation and drinking.

The corps traditionally has retained water in upstream reservoirs and released it in the summer to maintain sufficient water levels for barge traffic.

But the effects of a lingering drought on the upper Great Plains have made lawsuits about Missouri River management a spring ritual.

The lawsuit, filed last month in U.S. District Court in Omaha, is one of nine pending that will likely determine the long-term operations of the Missouri River.

It seeks to “help ensure that the Missouri River is managed in a way that serves their interests in flood control, navigation and shipping … power and water supply, agriculture and the environment.”

Other defendants in the lawsuit include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior Secretary Gale Norton, and the states of South Dakota, North Dakota and Montana.

According the lawsuit, low water flows in 2002 and 2003 caused interruptions in barge traffic on the Mississippi River.

The Missouri River provides much of the water in the Mississippi in a stretch from St. Louis to Cairo, Ill.

“As a result, shippers, barge and tow companies and farmers suffered millions of dollars of damages,” according to the lawsuit.

Filing the lawsuit were Blaske Marine Inc. of Alton, Ill.; ConocoPhillips Co. of Houston; Ergon Asphalt & Emulsions Inc. of Jackson, Miss.; Magnolia Marine Transport Co. of Jackson, Miss., and Midwest Terminal Warehouse Co. Inc., of Kansas City, Mo.

They were joined by four nonprofit groups: the Coalition to Protect the Missouri River; the Midwest Area River Coalition; the Mo-Ark Assn. and the Missouri River Keepers.

Last year, a flurry of federal lawsuits sought to force the Corps of Engineers to maintain water levels in large reservoirs north of the river’s shipping channel for game fish and recreation.

Another pending lawsuit by 10 conservation groups, including American Rivers and the National Wildlife Federation, wants the corps to use a plan for the river that would help the pallid sturgeon, an endangered fish, and two endangered birds, the piping plover and interior least tern.