Yankton, S.D. ? Over roughly the next two weeks, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will raise the water level on the Missouri River in hopes of coaxing the endangered pallid sturgeon into reproducing.

The plan is the result of a 2003 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service opinion that calls on the corps to protect the fish by attempting to replicate the way melting mountain snow made the river rise each spring before dams were built.

Creating a so-called spring rise on the river has been the subject of court battles for years. The corps is going ahead with the latest plan despite a lawsuit from the state of Missouri to try to stop it.

The corps’ plan had called for two spring rises this year, but the first was canceled because water levels in reservoirs feeding the river were too low.

Along the lower banks, people are concerned crops could be flooded and barges sidetracked.