CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (AP) - A federal judge who heard arguments over a plan to intentionally break a Mississippi River levee has left the bench without making a ruling.
Judge Stephen Limbaugh Jr. heard arguments from attorneys for Missouri and the Army Corps of Engineers Thursday on a corps proposal to blow a 2-mile-wide hole through the Birds Point levee in southeast Missouri. The corps says breaking the levee would ease waters rising around the upstream town of Cairo, Ill., near the confluence of the swollen Mississippi and Ohio rivers.
Missouri says the rush of water would ruin prime farmland, flood about 90 homes and displace 200 people.
Near the beginning of the hearing, Limbaugh said he would expedite the case given the circumstances.
But he left the bench Thursday evening without a decision.
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