Corps changing Missouri River management plan after flooding

? The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Monday it will change its approach to managing the Missouri River following a summer of record flooding that damaged or destroyed hundreds of homes, led to millions of dollars in road repairs and forced communities to scramble to build temporary levees.

The corps said it will make the changes in the coming months, including getting as much water out of the river basin’s reservoir system as possible before spring and aggressively releasing more water in the spring, if needed.

The corps also is looking at how much more reservoir space might be needed to ease flooding.

The changes come in response to concerns voiced by residents — many of whom lost crops or were forced out of their homes for weeks by the flooding — during eight public meetings recently held in Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, Montana and North Dakota.

“The past two weeks have been incredibly beneficial, and we have listened intently to the people we serve,” Brig. Gen. John McMahon, the commander of the corps’ northwestern division, said in a written release. “The top priority of the Northwestern Division Missouri is to responsibly prepare for the 2012 runoff season.”

The public meetings often turned contentious, with corps officials facing angry residents who blamed them for not doing more to allay the flooding.

Corps officials said they had the reservoirs at desired levels last spring, but a late buildup of snow in the Rocky Mountains and unexpectedly heavy rains in Montana and other upstream areas in May led to record runoff. That prompted to the corps to release massive amounts of water from dams along the river, resulting in massive flooding downstream.