Senator Kit Bond calls Army Corps' pallid sturgeon plan 'nuts'

ST. LOUIS — Sen. Kit Bond has renewed Missouri concerns about federal efforts to restore an endangered fish on the Missouri River.

Bond called the means to achieve the goal of improving conditions for the pallid sturgeon "nuts" and environmentally unsound.

He said the creation of side-channels involves dumping millions of tons of farmland soil containing hypoxia-causing phosphorus into the Missouri River. The Republican said he'll do his best to derail the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' $70 million funding request.

The corps said it's reintroducing sediment, not moving soil from upland farms. It said the nutrients are a small contributor to the hypoxia problem in the Gulf of Mexico. The National Academy of Sciences is studying the sediment issue.