Waters still rising around evacuated Illinois town

Waters still rising around evacuated Illinois town

"(Reuters) - Missouri's attorney general asked the Supreme Court on Sunday to intervene and block a proposed federal plan to protect the southern Illinois town of Cairo by blowing up a levee on the Mississippi River.

State Attorney General Chris Koster asked the nation's highest court for a temporary injunction to prevent the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from intentionally breaching the Birds Point levee, a move that would flood 130,000 acres of farmland and destroy the homes of an estimated 200 people in Missouri.

By blowing up the levee, the Corps hopes to increase the Mississippi River's ability to accommodate the rising waters of the Ohio River, relieving Cairo and other towns.

Cairo, a historic town of 2,800 people located at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi, was largely empty after a mandatory evacuation as the Ohio, swollen by overnight rains, continued to rise to dangerously high record levels."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/01/us-weather-floods-missouri-idUSTRE73S3GH20110501