Sens. Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley joined farmers and others to demand changes in the way the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers operates and maintains Missouri River flood control measures last week at a U.S. Senate field hearing in Glenwood.

“Having your farmland, homes and businesses flooded out every few years cannot become a fact of life,” said Ernst, who chaired the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee field hearing. “This cycle of flood and rebuild, flood and rebuild must end.”

More than 200 people pack­­ed the hearing, which examined the circumstances leading to last month’s widespread Missouri River flooding. An Iowa Farm Bureau estimate pegged damage at nearly $2 billion, noting that thousands of acres of submerged fields will not be planted this year and grain stored in...