• ST. LOUIS (AP) -- The Army Corps of Engineers has turned back requests by federal lawmakers and the barge operators to release more water from the Missouri River, believing the drought-starved Mississippi River it feeds still will remain open to shipping. The industry, however, warns that the situation is growing increasingly dire.
• Army Assistant Secretary Jo-Ellen Darcy, in a Thursday letter obtained by The Associated Press, told lawmakers from Mississippi River states she doesn't consider it necessary to boost Missouri River flows into the Mississippi -- something the politicians urgently had sought.
• Darcy, a top Army Corps official, noted this week's revised National Weather Service forecast, which showed the Mississippi's level wasn't falling as rapidly as expected. She also said the corps is hastening its push to rid the river of rock pinnacles south of St. Louis that endanger barges when the water level is low.
• Darcy also reinforced what the corps has been insisting for weeks: Reducing the Missouri's flow is necessary because low levels in its upper basin could negatively affect recreation in the upper Missouri while impacting drinking water supplies, animal habitat and hydropower. Darcy added that the corps is legislatively bound to act in the best interest of the Missouri River, with what happens on the Mississippi incidental.
• U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill did not greet the letter warmly. The Missouri Democrat asserted Friday the corps would be to blame if shipping on the Mississippi -- a corridor on which everything from grain to coal, chemicals and petroleum products is transported -- gets slowed or shut down completely.
• "Missouri businesses and jobs depend on our ability to continue commercial navigation along the Mississippi -- and the dropping water level can't be ignored," McCaskill said. "The Army Corps is now saying that we can continue navigation without increased flows from the Missouri, and we should hold them accountable if that prediction doesn't pan out."
• The corps last month began paring the outflow from an upper Missouri River dam in South Dakota with plans to gradually cut about two-thirds of the flow through next Tuesday. That action stoked concerns among Mississippi River barge operators, given that Missouri River water accounts for about 78 percent of the Mississippi at St. Louis.

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