Water levels along the flooded Missouri River should start dropping a little faster today. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will start cutting its releases of water from Gavins Point Dam, near Yankton, South Dakota, by five-thousand cubic feet per second (CFS) each day. Those daily reductions will run through the end of the month. It’ll drop the releases from a peak of 160-thousand CFS at the flood’s crest two months ago. That translated to about a million gallons per second. The Corps wants to cut releases slowly so fragile levees don’t collapse. By September, the rate should be 90-thousand CFS. Daily cuts will start again in mid-September and should be down to 40-thousand CFS by October and down to 20-thousand by December.

(Radio Iowa)