Left to right: Atchison City Manager Becky Berger, U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS), 63rd KS Representative Dr. John Eplee, and Atchison Mayor Shawn Rizza, discussed flooding at the Atchison Riverfront March 29, 2019 (Credit: Brian Hagen/MSC News)
(KAIR)--Atchison-area officials late Thursday morning gathered at Atchison’s riverfront to meet with United States Senator Jerry Moran. “I wanted to see what the circumstance is,” Moran said following his talk with officials.
With the Missouri River serving as the backdrop, the Republican Senator from Kansas discussed the impact of recent flooding with the local officials. “This is really early in the year, this is a lot of water to have in March. Spring is still ahead of us, and lots of reports of great levels of snow-melt and the rainy season coming. I want to have conversations that I take from these meetings back to the Army Corps of Engineers. What are they doing to help reduce the chance that there will be future flooding later this year?”
Among those taking part in the discussion were Kansas 63rd District Representative Dr. John Eplee, Atchison City Manager Becky Berger, Atchison Vice-Mayor Dr. Allen Reavis, Atchison County Emergency Management Director Wes Lanter, and Atchison Mayor Shawn Rizza. “We really appreciate him coming down and putting eyes on the problem, that way he can take that experience back to Washington with him and help solve those problems,” Rizza told MSC News. “It’s going to take a lot of work working together with Missouri, raising up [U.S. Highway] 59 so that every time this happens we don’t get stuck. We’re losing a lot of business from the Missouri side where people, instead of coming over the bridge to us, are now going to St. Joe, going to Kansas City. It’s going to take work at the federal level for that to really be fixed.”
Moran said the issue of the elevation of U.S. Highway 59, which remains closed due to flooding just east of Atchison, in Buchanan County, Missouri, will be discussed with Missouri officials. “I’ve already had a number of conversations with Senator Blunt, from Missouri, about how we can work together. Generally, we were talking about levees, but this is an opportunity for us to see if we can encourage Missouri, as they rebuild 59, to do it in a way that it doesn’t flood in the future.”
Moran’s Atchison visit was one part of his overall Thursday tour of northeast Kansas locales impacted by flooding. “I’ve been in Leavenworth this morning [Friday, March 28] visiting with city officials. We’ll spend time, of course, here in Atchison, and a stop, for a couple hours, in Doniphan County, meeting with ag producers. I would expect, as I spend additional time in northeast Kansas, that agriculture will be a place in which much of the damage has occurred. Farmers and ranchers, consequences to their livestock and to their grain, and their ability to grow crops into the future.”
Moran was to be accompanied during his meeting in Doniphan County by state officials from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which Moran said included Rural Development, NRCS, and FSA, the Farm Service Agency.
Moran said a disaster assistance bill is advancing in the Senate which would include support for flood-stricken states such as Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska.
