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OTTUMWA, IOWA -- Two Iowa Congressmen placed a request to President Obama Friday to update the reservoir management plans of many Iowa lakes.

Congressmen Dave Loebsack and Leonard Boswell sent the letter urging that the reservoir management plans for the reservoirs in Iowa such as the Coralville, Saylorville, Red Rock, and Rathbun Reservoirs be studied and updated.

Loebsack said it has been a long time since the management plans have been updated and many things such as erosion and river flow have changed the rivers over time.

Loebsack said since 2008 he has received a lot of requests for action to help control the flooding.

He held town hall meetings earlier this year with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to hear from residents and city officials along the river.

“The bottom line is that these reservoirs were constructed initially for flood control. Obviously since that time a number of other functions have been added to that purpose of the different reservoirs- recreation, environmental concerns, a number of other concerns beyond flood control. I think flood control has to be the number one concern,” Loebsack said.

KTOV also contacted the Kansas City District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which controls Lake Rathbun.

They said they have very little influence in situations such as these and will abide by Congresses orders.

Loebsack said the study, if approved, will be conducted in 2012.

A full text of the letter is below.

Dear President Obama,

We write to express our support for funding for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) to conduct long-term scientific studies of the management plans for the Corps flood-control reservoirs in Iowa. We respectfully request you provide funding for such activities in your Fiscal Year 2012 Budget.

Recently, the Governor of Iowa wrote in support of the same request in response to the serious flooding that has occurred in Iowa this year and also in 2008. Further, there are numerous counties in our districts that have experienced severe flooding over the past few months for which we wrote to you requesting a presidential disaster declaration. This flooding has damaged infrastructure, farmland, homes, and businesses in many Iowa counties and has continued up until as soon as last weekend.

The management plans for the reservoirs in Iowa such as the Coralville, Saylorville, Red Rock, and Rathbun Reservoirs, all of which directly impact our districts, have not been substantially updated or studied for some time. We have already been working with the Corps and affected communities since the Floods of 2008 to begin a dialogue on the management of the reservoirs and the water release-rate policies through town-hall like meetings, funding requests for flood-risk modeling, and letters to the Corps expressing the continued concerns we hear from our constituents on these issues. 

As our state continues to recover from the Floods of 2008, begins to address the current flooding, and continues mitigation efforts to prevent the flooding that is seemingly becoming much more common, it is critical the Corps be provided resources to examine the flood protection reservoir management plans for the which so many Iowans rely on for protection.

Thank you for your time and consideration of this matter. We will also look to continuing to support enhanced flood control through the Appropriations request process for Fiscal Year 2012.