By Angela Hatton
Frankfort, KY – A federal district judge says the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers can breach a levee at Birds Point in southeastern Missouri. State officials had argued that the Corps' plan to break the levee would ruin 130,000 acres of valuable farm land. Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway intervened in the case. He says the cost to Kentucky's river communities would be much higher.
"And one estimate that we got from Fulton County yesterday is that, that around the town of Hickman, Kentucky, this could save 32 million dollars in potential flood damage. So for the four river counties of Ballard, and Carlisle, and Hickman, and Fulton, this is tremendously important."
The Corps has not announced whether they will move forward with the levee's destruction. That decision could come this weekend. The Ohio and Mississippi rivers are expected to crest at record-high levels by early next week.