MISSOURI RIVER
Giving the River Room
Flooding has always been a part of Ryan Ottmann’s life. “I’ve lived on the Missouri River my entire life. I still live in the house where I was born,” he said. Some of his earliest memories are riding in the back of a pickup truck with his dad checking for holes in the levee. “High water events were family events—whole community events, actually.” The first significant flood of Ryan’s life was in 1993. “The flood of ’93 was bad, and the flood of 2011 was a little worse,” he said. “But the flood of 2019 was exponentially worse than all the other floods combined. That’s when we realized that we had to do something different for us and for our kids.” Ryan is president of the Atchison County Levee District (ACLD) in Missouri, one the largest levee districts in the country. In addition to maintaining 54 miles of levee along the Missouri River, the ACLD now had to develop a workable plan to minimize flood damage and address environmental concerns.
After discussions with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, it was determined that a levee setback, moving the levee to allow the river more room, was possible. The setback was the best long-term solution, but it wasn’t the easiest option. “We were going to these landowners, many of whom are farming land that’s been in their families for hundreds of years, and telling them we are thinking about a setback, and their ground would now be outside of the levee,” he said. “It’s not an easy ask.” The young ACLD board needed help from a host of partners, including The Nature Conservancy, and support from previous generations within its community to partner with the landowners and get the project done. “Max Peeler is a crucial part of this levee system, and he has been for years,” said Ryan. “He’s not only a historic member of our board, but he’s a lifelong resident and landowner in a section where we needed the setback.”
Max agreed with the plan, and soon all other landowners were on board. The setback benefits the local community, those downstream and the whole ecosystem that surrounds it. “It’s about preserving nature and coexisting with it. We both benefit when it’s done correctly,” he said. “We want this to be a pilot project, to show other communities that it’s possible, and set a precedent so it will be easier in the future,” said Ryan. New levee construction began in August 2020 and is expected to be completed by January. “We couldn’t have done it without the help from our community, our partners and from TNC,” said Ryan. “This means a lot to me,” Ryan said. “We just had twins, a boy and a girl, and we named our son River James. So yeah, this river means everything to me.”
LEARN MORE about this project at nature.org/MoRiverLevee
NATURE.ORG/MISSOURI 5
THIS PAGE Ryan Ottmann (second from right) and the Atchison County Levee Board © Route 3 Films
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