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Article: A channel erosion guide: to keep rivers within bounds.(Missouri River erosion in Montana)
- Article from:
- Agricultural Research
- Article date:
- January 1, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 U.S. Government Printing Office. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In the world of finance, bank failures tend to get press coverage. But there's another kind of bank failure that affects the American West: Missouri River bank failures in eastern Montana involve lost soil--not dollars--but still hurt farmers financially.
Just ask Boone Whitmer, who farms 3,000 acres of wheat and alfalfa near Wolf Point. Like most farmers bordering the Missouri River downstream from the Fort Peck dam, he places irrigation pumps along the banks to get water for his crops. But the shifting sand bed of the river can clog pumps with sediment and hit growers like him hard.
"In the winter, you can have a working pump site, but by spring it's ...