(Reuters) – A federal judge on Friday ruled that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers can blow up a Mississippi River levee, which would flood Missouri farmland but prevent flooding an Illinois town.
U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr. ruled that the Corps had the right to breach the levee to prevent flooding in Cairo, Illinois, as permitted by a 1928 law.
The levee breach would flood 130,000 acres of Missouri farmland, which contains about 90 homes. Missouri had filed suit to prevent the Corps from carrying out its plan.
Limbaugh wrote that he found that the Corps is committed to implementing the plan only as essential to provide protection to all citizens. He wrote “this Court finds that no aspect of the Corps’ response to these historic floods suggests arbitrary or capricious decision-making is occurring.”
The Corps plans to decide this weekend whether to blow up the Birds Point levee, depending on the level of the water on the river. It will detonate explosives in the levee if the Cairo river reaches 61 feet. At 8 a.m. CDT (1300 GMT) on Friday, it was at 59 feet and forecast to rise to 60.5 feet, according to the National Weather Service.