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Unknown bomber explodes levees near Ft Calhoun

Deborah Dupre's photo
Human Rights Examiner

Neglected farmers taking matters in their own hands?

An investigation is underway in attempt to determine who used explosives to blow up levees upriver and east of Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station around 10:00 Friday morning. In the rich farmland where families still depend on crops for a living and American families depend on those crops for their dinner table, officials report there has been "no damage" to the area, assuring that they had nothing to do with these levee explosions according to KETV News in Omaha, Nebraska. 

Farmers have been increasingly disgruntled with the way officials are managing the epic flooding. The levee explosions come less than a week after "workers"  punctured the aqua-dam, recently erected to help protect the nuclear station from rising waters, sending thousands of tons of flood waters into the nuclear plant area.

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"We had nothing to do with it," stated Matt Wilber, the Pottawattamie County Attorney who is overseeing the county response to flooding.

"Someone went in and basically breached that levee, blew it up," Wilber told reporters for KETV.

"So, the water that was pooling there is now basically flowing back down."

County officials reported that a half-mile stretch of Vanmann #30 levee near Desoto Bend was mechanically excavated and then lowered by using explosives Friday morning but they did not know who was responsible according to KETV News.

People in the Fort Calhoun area heard explosions and then realized the levees were being exploded. They phoned Emergency Management Coordinator Jeff Theulen on Friday morning, wanting to know why levees were being blown up.
 
"One caller claimed to have witnessed the explosion." reports KETV.
 
Authorities told KETV they’re investigating the levee breach.
 
"Pottawattamie County officials said no government entity had anything to do with the detonation, and they did not have advance notice from the people responsible for the breach."
 
The Pottawattamie County Assessor's Office reported to KETV that "trustees of a levee district ordinarily have control over levees in their jurisdiction" and that "the county attorney's office is investigating the possibility of charges and whether the people responsible obtained the explosives illegally."
 
Before Friday, officials' efforts failed to prevent flooding the farmlands in the area. Then the levee there broke. Crops were flooded. In the week that followed, there had been discussions with local government to lower the new levee according to KETV News but their had been "no clear answers."
 
The levee where the detonation occurred is on private land. During the investigation, neighbors might remain tight-lipped if they get along with each other. Negative sentiments about government are growing less than favorable, as reflected in the first comment posted under the report on the KETV website reads:
"Whoever did this is trying to protect private property from the mismanagement & misinformation of the Corps & others that are trying to drown us. I lost my home of 38 yrs and would have done the same to protect my neighbors & myself if I had the equipment & explosives. 
"Keep in mind that 30,000 people in CB are in jeopardy thanks to the Clinton Administration & Corps of Engineer's poor choices for the last 18 yrs. Shame on them. God Bless America and protect her from her government gone astray."
 
Another reads, "Locals feel left very 'high & dry' all over the midwest, by govt. If it has to be done, so be it."
Project Flood 2011: Flooding US farmland
Project Flood 2011: Flooding US farmland
Photo credit: 
Getty Images

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Deborah Dupre' holds American and Australian science and education graduate degrees plus thirty years human rights, environmental and peace activism; led Aboriginal Pacific Islander and Australian research; holds pivotal role in FUEL; co-founded America's Green Team, FUEL; lectures on Ancient...

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