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FROM PAGE ONE / REGION
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Flood
From Page 1A a record that day of 61.7 feet. Water roared through the 9,000-foot-long hole blown in the levee and according to the corps, within an hour, the Cairo gauge reading had dropped six inches. By 6 a.m. the next morning, it had dropped more than a foot. Farmers traveled in boats, across more than 20 feet of water in places, to survey the damage. Immediately after the breach, many in the floodway questioned whether they’d be able to plant a crop at all in 2011. “There was about 60 days when there was not a lot of activity either inside the spillway or outside the spillway,” Mainord said. Jeff Cox of French Implements, a John Deere dealer in Charleston, Mo., said he thought the company would see a huge loss last year, but that turned out not to be the case. “Even though the levee was breached, we were really fortunate that a lot of the crop got in, prices were good and yields were better than expected,” he said. Most of the county’s wheat crop, however, was left a matted, muddy mess after the waters receded. In most instances these fields had to be bush-hogged or burned off. While 89,200 acres of wheat were planted in Mississippi and New Madrid counties last year, 24,900 acres less than that were harvested, according to
LAURA SIMON ~ lsimon@semissourian.com
The remnants of farmland are seen June 1 along Mississippi County Road 310 in the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway.
Crop production in Mississippi and New Madrid counties in bushels Corn Soybeans Wheat
2011 14,462,000 14,919,000 3,778,000
2010 20,681,000 13,150,000 2,348,000
Difference -6,219,000 1,769,000 1,430,000
Est. Loss/Gain -$39,801,600 $21,051,100 $9,438,000
Source: USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service *Estimated values based on USDA Average Market Year Prices
USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service. At last year’s average yields of 60 bushels per acre at 2011’s marketing year price of $6.60 per bushel, that comes to a loss of $9.86 million. However, total wheat production in these counties increased from the previous year because about twice as much wheat had been planted in 2011 than in 2010 and crops outside the floodway did well. It was June before the water receded and fields could be prepared — far too late in
the season to plant corn. Last year, 41,400 fewer acres of corn were planted in New Madrid and Mississippi counties than during 2010. The counties’ corn production dropped from 20.6 million bushels in 2010 to 14.4 million bushels last year, according to USDA statistics. At 2011’s marketing year price of $6.40 per bushel, that’s a loss of $39.8 million. Once the floodway dried out enough to work the fields, Mississippi and New
Tent
Madrid county farmers got to work planting soybeans. As a result, 33,000 more acres of soybeans were planted in 2011 than in the previous year, according to USDA statistics. A total of 366,500 acres of soybeans were planted in New Madrid and Mississippi Counties producing 14.9 million bushels of soybeans. Crop insurance helped those who had it, paying out $21.9 million in indemnities last year in Mississippi and New Madrid counties, according to the USDA’s Risk
Labor
From Page 1A
From Page 1A
Sports Bar, near Busch Stadium. The crowd was celebrating after the Cardinals had beat Milwaukee 7-3 earlier in the afternoon. Eddie Roth, director for the St. Louis Department of Public Safety, said winds of about 50 mph shattered aluminum poles that held up the tent, which was located south of the stadium. The force of the wind blew the tent onto an adjacent railroad bridge. “It was crazy, scary,” said Annie Randall, whose family owns Kilroy’s. “We’re just so sorry this happened.” Kilroy’s owner Art Randall described a short burst of a storm — perhaps five seconds, he said — with a massive wind that lifted the huge tent, threw it perhaps 100 feet into the air and sent the aluminum poles and most everything in the tent airborne. When he heard the boom, he initially thought a train had derailed into the tent. As the wind blew, a bolt of lightning crashed into the bar, Randall said. He said firefighters told him it was a lightning strike — not flying debris — that killed the man. “At some point in that five seconds, we were getting lightning strikes, and
KSDK-TV
Officials respond to the scene where a tent blew over Saturday after high winds crossed the area in St. Louis. The tent was set up next to Kilroy’s Sports Bar, where St. Louis Fire Chief Dennis Jenkerson said a few hundred people were celebrating after the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Milwaukee Brewers in a baseball game. apparently one of our customers got hit by lightning right in the middle of the dance floor,” Randall said. Randall said he screamed for help and three customers ran over to administer CPR, but they couldn’t save the man. Randall looked around “and saw 50 bodies scattered everywhere.” St. Louis public safety director Eddie Roth said the man killed appeared to be in his 50s. His name has not been released. Roth said the tent had passed inspection and it didn’t appear there would be any violation, although the investigation is ongoing. Randall described a scene in which barstools, pedestals and a 100-pound bass amplifier were flying through the
air. The disc jockey working the party was struck by the amp and knocked unconscious, he said, and people were scurrying to help one another. “My wife had people in the beer cooler — we had the beer cooler loaded with injuries,” Randall said. “It was a triage deal.” Kilroy’s is among several bars near Busch Stadium, and many bars set up tents for the excess business after Cardinals games. Crowds were also large because the St. Louis Blues were playing against the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday night in the first game of the NHL’s Western Conference semifinals. The St. Louis area was under thunderstorm and tornado warnings several times Saturday.
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barred children younger than 16 years old from jobs like operating power equipment, driving four wheelers or tractors, branding and breeding farm animals and working on ladders at heights over six feet unless the child’s parent is the sole owner of the farming operation. Some educators said the proposed rule also put the hands-on component of high school agriculture programs at risk. “The DOL made the right decision in allowing veteran farmers and agriculturalists to volunteer as caretakers in the task of educating our children about farm safety by working with them sideby-side, instead of processing them through government training, or worse, denying them access to hands-on safety education altogether,” Laura Nothdurft, agriculture instructor at Jackson High School, said
Retreat From Page 1A
Councilman Mark Lanzotti told Thompson that he’d heard from constituents that not enough aquatics features were at Cape Splash for children ages 10 to 15. Thompson responded that such features, like water slides, can sometimes cost as much as $750,000. “I’m not saying we have the money to do them,” Lanzotti said. “ ... I’m not suggesting that’s a negative. I’m just saying it’s a perception.” Also in the planning stages are specialized parks for dogs and skateboarders, Thompson said, which have been discussed before. Police chief Carl Kinnison reiterated his need for a new or expanded police department, calling it a “constant struggle” to try to make do in such cramped quarters. Fire chief Rick Ennis talked about what he thinks is a need for more storm sirens. The
Management Agency, which operates the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation. Most of this was for lost corn crops. Marshall estimates he lost $1 million worth of wheat, but he had crop insurance that covered the losses. This was the first year he’d purchased insurance on his wheat, but decided to do so because he knew the river was high and there was a lot of snow pack up north. He’s received some assistance from the USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service to repair his farmland. Last year he had 1,500 acres of his 8,000 acre floodway farm damaged to the point he couldn’t plant it. This year he’s down to just about 300 acres that aren’t farmable. He is filling the crevices in his fields where the river tried to cut a new channel through, which has already cost him nearly $400,000. He expects to spend about that much more before he’s finished. NRCS has provided $4 million in grants to farmers to help repair farmland through its Emergency Conservation Program administered by the USDA’s Farm Service agency. NRCS also provided $9.2 million to clean out and repair a network of drainage ditches through the floodway. This work is underway now. The Federal Emergency Management Agency stepped in to help repair roads, bridges and other public infrastructure destroyed in the levee breach. FEMA has obligated $8.3 million for 116 projects in in an email. Nothdurft herself was involved in 4-H and FFA projects she says were supervised by adults who were concerned for her safety. It was these experiences that led her to choose a career as an agriculture educator. She even made a down payment on a house with a cattle herd that grew out of projects with these agricultural education programs. “If the DOL proposed rule had stood, it would have devastated our nation’s Agricultural Education Programs; but, worse, it would have stolen the rights of students to learn productivity, problem solving, community, and safety awareness next to committed, caring, wise adults,” she said. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, Sen. Roy Blunt and Gov. Jay Nixon issued statements Friday supporting the department’s decision to withdraw the proposed rule. Emerson and Blunt had sent letters to the department urging the rule making effort be abandoned. “We don’t need much proof that this Administration doesn’t understand rural council seemed interested in at least funding four more to bring the city’s total to eight at a cost of about $100,000. Ennis said the biggest issue facing the department, however, is expanding its emergency medical service to include ambulance transportation. “We’ve been kind of dancing around the subject for the past several years,” Ennis said. Council members agreed that the issue needs to be explored, with at least some of them expressing frustration at the city fire trucks beating private ambulances to medical calls only to see the reimbursement for services go to the private ambulance company, and not to the fire department. During a general council discussion, the council also talked about deer management, a controversial issue that has been hotly contested for months. At least five of the council members — Voss, Rediger, Lanzotti, Trent Summers and Meg Davis Proffer — indicated Friday that they supported a managed archery hunt in the city limits. Sch-
Mississippi County and $2.02 million for 155 projects in New Madrid County. FEMA also provided assistance to 629 households in New Madrid and Mississippi Counties whose homes were damaged in last spring’s flooding. These families received $5.2 million in federal aid. The Small Business Administration also stepped in to provide home loans for families who lost their homes to the floodwaters. Thirty-nine home loans totaling $2.6 million were granted by the Small Business Administration to families in Mississippi and New Madrid counties. Four business loans for $125,200 were also granted by the SBA in these counties. It’s difficult to try to put a dollar amount on the ultimate effect the levee breach had on the local economy, said Dr. Bruce Domazlicky, director of the Center for Economic and Business Research at Southeast Missouri State University. During the second half of last year, employment in Mississippi County was about 120 individuals fewer than in the first half, he said. But it’s difficult to say how much, if any, of that decline was related to the breach. Still, it’s suggestive, Domazlicky said. Retail sales in Mississippi County increased in the second half of last year, about 6 percent higher than in the first half of the year. “Overall, the data does not paint a clear picture of the effect on the county,” Domazlicky said. mmiller@semissourian.com 388-3646
America, but this proposal was clearly out of step with the reality of growing up on a farm or ranch in Missouri and many other parts of the country,” Emerson said in her statement. Blunt is a co-sponsor of the “Preserving America’s Family Farm” Act, a bipartisan bill, calling on the department to withdraw the regulations. The department’s decision was criticized by the Human Rights Watch organization, saying the rule shielded hired child farmworkers from the most dangerous tasks. Human Rights Watch in a news release Friday called agriculture the most dangerous work open to children in the United States. In 2010, the latest figures available, 16 children younger than 16 were fatally injured at work in the U.S.; 12 of them worked on farms, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. mmiller@semissourian.com 388-3646
neider, who favors trapping the deer, said she would vote against it. City staff is bringing back a plan that considers several options at the council’s May 21 meeting. Near the end of the meeting, before the council went into closed session, Lanzotti brought up the Plaza Galleria and what it would take to condemn the building, raze it and make it available for development. Lanzotti noted that the former ice-skating rink is in a prime and growing economic development area and his comments suggested frustration at it sitting vacant so long. City attorney Eric Cunningham said that it could be done under the city’s dangerous buildings ordinance, specifying that it would not be taken by eminent domain. Another highlight from the retreat included a likely 2-percent cost-of-living adjustment for city employees, which is 1 percent higher than last year, which would cost the city about $280,000. smoyers@semissourian.com 388-3642
Benton man arrested on drug charges SOUTHEAST MISSOURIAN
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BENTON, Mo. — A 30year-old Benton man was in the Scott County Jail on Friday on $25,000 bond following a narcotics investigation that resulted in his arrest, the sheriff ’s department said in a news release. A search of Shuntell Walls’ home Tuesday re-
Editor: Spencer Cramer / 388-3632
vealed about 5 ounces of marijuana and three Ecstacy pills, according to a probable-cause affidavit. Deputies booked Walls into the jail on two charges of possession of a controlled substance and one charge of unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia. The search of the home also revealed plastic bag-
gies, scales, a marijuana “grinder” and a list of names with dollar figures to whom Walls allegedly sold substances, the affidavit said. When asked if there were any more illegal substances in the home, Walls responded, “No, you just missed it,” and “Dude done picked it up,” according to the affidavit.