Ron Yarbro isn't sure how deep the water is over the farmland that lies south of Highway 53, but he is certain of one thing.
"It's deep enough to kill anything planted there. It makes me sick to look at it," Yarbro said Wednesday, driving along Highway HH and those county roads in southern Butler County that aren't still flooded.
About 6,000 acres of farmland remains underwater here, according to Yarbro and his brother, Bruce.
It was closer to 10,000 acres the week prior, they said.
Every day the water stays up, there is less growing time for farmers.
The window has already closed for corn and most likely rice as well, according to agronomists. Both crops were already in the ground in some flooded fields.
Soybeans have until mid-June before yield becomes impacted, but even that planting season is gone by July 4th.
"I've seen water this deep before, but I've never seen it stay this long," said farmer C.P. Johnson, who has worked land in the Coon Island area since the 1960s. "Usually, it's no more than a couple of weeks."
The Yarbro family has farmed this section of Butler County for more than 70 years, since the brothers' father came home from World War II.
"We've never missed a crop, but this may be the year," Yarbro said, driving roads that travel between the Black River and Ackerman Ditch, two waterways that should be helping drain these fields.
He calls this the never-ending flood. While the Yarbros know they aren't the only ones hurting, they aren't sure many realize the water has never left this area.
"You hear the flood is over, but down here, it's not. People down here have been parking their vehicles on the highway and taking boats in and out of their houses," Yarbro said.
The how and why are questions that generate a variety of answers.
Butler County commissioners have long said log jams in the Black River south of Highway 53 are constricting the channel and preventing water from leaving the county as quickly as it should.
This pushes the river out of its banks, as well as contributing to levee breaches, they have said.
Every flood is different, Johnson believes. There are a lot of variations, from rainfall to where levee breaches occur -- and there are always levee breaches.
"If the levees could have held the water, we wouldn't have been in trouble down here," Johnson said, adding, "With the development to the north, the water comes down to us faster."
There is at least one levee breach currently along the Black River south of Highway 53.
The breach is about 150-feet wide and located about two miles north of the Coon Island Conservation Area held by the Missouri Department of Conservation for duck hunting. It is in the area of the Crane Roost Access, within Drainage District 7.
The levee cannot be repaired until the Black River drops enough to allow access, something that won't happen as long as Clearwater Lake remains high.
The lake reached a record stage in early May and is expected to remain above summer pool through the July 4th holiday, which means discharge will also remain high. Water crossed the overflow spillway this month, for the first time in the lake's history.
The Yarbros agree the levee breach is a problem, and so are the log jams, but they also believe a different set of levees built by MDC for duck hunting prevents water from leaving the area. The MDC levees create a wetland area, holding knee deep water to attract waterfowl and other wetland wildlife.
The brothers believe this also constricts the natural flow of water and is slowing down drainage.
"I wish they'd tear them down, but if they're going to keep them, why don't they fix (the MDC levees) where they can alleviate this problem when ducks aren't in season," Yarbro asked.
The wetland levees do have structures that allow flood water to pass through, said Kevin Brunke, wildlife management biologist MDC. The ones within flood control areas are built with 150-foot wide spillways, he said.
For Brunke, the problem comes back to the original river levee breach.
"It's just kind of overwhelming infrastructure from the breach all the way down," he said. "There are county roads holding it back. There are private levees holding it back. Everyone's infrastructure between HH and the Black River ditch levee pretty well is moving at or beyond maximum capacity."
Regardless of the why, farmers have less than three weeks to get soybeans in the ground or see yield losses.
"The yield potential goes down drastically. It starts falling after mid-June," Johnson said.
The average loss is about one bushel per acre per day, said Sam Atwell, University of Missouri agronomist.
A crop planted July 1 could bring in 15-20 bushels less per acre because of differences in the amount of daylight, temperatures and other factors, Atwell said.