Contact: Ernest Blazar 202-224-7627 Shana Stribling 224-0309
Tuesday, June 18, 2002

WASHINGTON - Senator Kit Bond today said he will strongly oppose the Water Resources Development bill if the legislation includes provisions that will make it harder for poor communities to get federal help needed to protect against river flooding and also for navigation, recreation and environmental purposes.

“I see where this political process is going and I predict that if the Water Resources Development bill includes legislation to make it harder and more expensive for communities to get flood protection, then I believe I will have bipartisan support from many regions to resolve this on the floor, if necessary,” said Bond, a member of the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works. “I didn't pick this fight but I am ready, respectfully, to join it.”

Speaking personally about the pressing need for help, Jim Robinson, Jr., from Pinhook, Missouri, testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee at the invitation of Senator Bond. Pinhook, Missouri is in dire need of flood control assistance after decades of continued delays.

“I don’t know how many of you have ever been through a flood and know what it is like to have raw sewage in your home,” Robinson asked Senators. “What it is like when you get out of bed in the morning to have to wade through that mess. To have your children live in it. For them, to have to ride in a tractor drawn open wagon through the water just to get to a school bus. My people should not have to live that way year after year.”

Bond told his colleagues that towns filled with people of modest means deserve the same kind of quality flood protection enjoyed by more wealthy communities along our nation’s rivers. He released a letter to the Committee’s leadership.