WASHINGTON D.C. (KMOX) - Are efforts to save a couple of species of endangered birds and a large primitive fish contributing to the more frequent and destructive flooding along the Missouri River?
"The effect of that, over time, has been to decimate the flood control ability of the system downstream," Waters says.
The Fish and Wildlife Service, he says, is to blame.
"They have a heavy hand with the Endangered Species Act and really has been managing the river for the Corps of Engineer," Waters says. "The Corps follows orders and right now the Fish and Wildlife Service is the one giving them the orders."
The Sierra Club of St. Louis, a non-government environmental conservation organization is disputing the claims by Waters. You can hear more from the Sierra Club on Friday morning on KMOX with our Brian Kelly on Total Information AM.
Waters told the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Water Resources and Envionment Subcommittee, that it's time to make people and property the top priority.
"We've reached the tipping point," he said. "We can no longer continue to conduct failed experiment after failed experiment at the expense of peoples' lives and livelihoods. And I said lives because people have died."