The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is readying a plan to manage the upper Missouri River dam system over the winter. And due to dry conditions in the Rocky Mountains and Upper Great Plains, the plan is looking to be a bare minimum for down-river barge traffic.
This comes as 83 percent of the Missouri River Basin is either in drought or abnormally dry.
The Corps has the sometimes conflicting task of managing the river for barge traffic below Sioux City, flood control and environmental conservation. After consecutive dry years, the dam system above Gavins Point Dam in Yankton has plenty of capacity to handle potential flood events. The updated 2026 runoff forecast is now just 60 percent of the average – driven in large part by sparse snow accumulations last winter in the Rocky Mountains and Upper Great Plains.
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