WASHINGTON - Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to stop the Army Corps of Engineers from raising water levels on the Missouri River this week.

The lawsuit says the annual spring rise should be canceled because it could add to the already heavy flooding Missouri suffered from torrential downpours last week.

The annual release of extra water into the river is supposed to cue spawning by the pallid sturgeon, a fish on the endangered species list.

A hearing on Nixon's request for a temporary restraining order is scheduled for 9 a.m. Central Tuesday in U.S. District Court in St. Louis.

"We need this order to ensure the corps does not make this catastrophe even worse by sending more water downstream for the pallid sturgeon, where any rise would only add to the devastation along the streams and rivers that empty into the Missouri and Mississippi," Nixon said in a written statement.

Corps spokesman Paul Johnston said the agency would decide on Tuesday whether to proceed with the spring rise. Guidelines permit the corps to take the possibility of flooding into account.

"We're still monitoring the downstream river conditions in central and eastern Missouri," Johnston said. "As predicted, a lot of the river stages along the Missouri are dropping rapidly."

Johnston said he could not immediately comment on what effect the litigation might have on the corps' decision.

Missouri officials have protested the spring rise for years because of the threat of downstream flooding. In his lawsuit, Nixon said there is no evidence the sturgeon benefits from a man-made pulse of water. The lawsuit also claims that many of the levees along the Missouri River that were breached by floods last year have not been fully repaired.

In 2006, Nixon lost a similar lawsuit challenging the corps' policy to conduct the spring rise. A federal judge in Minnesota rejected Nixon's argument that the spring rise failed to consider environmental impacts, including possible flooding.

Any release of water from Gavins Point Dam in South Dakota would take about 10 days to reach Missouri, when water levels are expected to have gone down.