COLUMBIA - A national park could be on its way to mid-Missouri. Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt pitched his ideas about the Missouri River to students and Missouri River dwellers Thursdayat the MU life sciences center.
The former Arizona governor wants to put the Missouri River on the
map as a national park that would stretch 350 miles from Kansas City to
St. Louis.
"This is the most beautiful and underappreciated natural river stretch and wild river in all of the united states."
This
is not the first time Babbit has been involved with the Missouri River.
Babbit worked with the river when he signed the Big Muddy National Fish
and Wildlife Refuge into legislation during his time as interior
secretary in 1993.
While the national park provides advantages for guests, it may not suit with everyone.
Meredith Ludwig, from the tiny river town of Lupus, said, "It won't go well with the farmers, and it won't go well with the barge traffic." She said a national park would restore the Big Muddy to its past.
Babbitt says that means no barge traffic.
"The core of engineers built a big project and built all these levees and no one ever came to the party," he said.
On the flip side of this issue are Missouri River dependents, such as the Agriculture Industry, which relies on barges plying the Missouri river to get their products to markets around the country.
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