During a webinar on Wednesday with the U.­­­S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), ASA submitted comments regarding implementation of the Water Resources Reform & Development Act (WRRDA).  ASA President Ray Gaesser and staff from Iowa and Illinois soybean associations represented soy growers during the discussion.

ASA emphasized that soybean producers depend on the waterways, especially the Upper Mississippi River System, to move products to market efficiently and while the passage of WRRDA is a step in the right direction, now the USACE must continue the progress and implement the law as intended by Congress.

The top priority for the ASA is funding and implementation of the Navigation and Ecosystem Sustainability Program (NESP) on the Upper Mississippi River System. NESP is an unprecedented, dual-purpose program that integrates lock capacity expansion and modernization (including seven new 1,200-foot lock chambers and several small-scale navigation efficiency measures) and ecosystem restoration efforts designed to improve the river’s ecological health.

“Therefore, as the Administration formulates its fiscal year 2016 budget, we urge you to prioritize construction funding for NESP to immediately undertake navigation efficiency improvements and upgrades to locks, including design and construction of new, larger locks on the Upper Mississippi River System, if feasible,” said ASA President Ray Gaesser during the USACE webinar.

Funding for NESP was last appropriated in 2011. Under current law, it could be de-authorized if it does not receive funding by FY2016, undoing years of multi-state collaboration and study. Governors from the Upper Mississippi River states (Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri and Wisconsin) sent a joint letter to President Obama in August, seeking support for critical investments in the Upper Mississippi River System as a “nationally significant navigation system and a nationally significant ecosystem” and urging that NESP be a priority in the Administration’s FY2016 Budget Request.

“The soybean industry supports that request and we believe that work on NESP can and should occur with FY15 discretionary funds and continue with the FY16 budget,” Gaesser said. “The time is now to address the navigation system's longstanding needs and ensure its capacity to relieve congestion on other parts of our nation's multi-modal infrastructure.”