U.S. Army Corps Clearing Mississippi River

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(by Cameron McWhirter, The Wall Street Journal) – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has begun removing rocks protruding from the bottom a drought-stricken stretch of the Mississippi River and now says it expects little disruption to commercial traffic in coming months. Companies that ship goods along the river, however, remain worried that traffic could be halted as early as next month.

The diverging views are the latest development in the months-long dispute over how best to keep commercial traffic flowing along the river from Cairo, Ill., to St. Louis. The prolonged drought in the upper Midwest has drastically reduced the river’s depth and exposed barges to rocky riverbeds near Thebes and Grand Tower, two towns in southern Illinois.

Groups representing businesses that transport heating oil, fertilizer, grain and other goods along the river say a shutdown of commercial traffic [due to exposed rocks] would delay delivery of goods and cut into profits.

The groups have been pressing governors, congressmen and President Barack Obama for weeks to push the Corps to speed plans to remove the rocks from two points on the Mississippi River to deepen the shipping channel.

Initially, the Corps wasn’t going to begin the demolition work until February or March, but after numerous calls for action from elected officials, it sped up plans. Mike Petersen, a Corps spokesman in St. Louis, said the work will now be finished by March.

So far, the Corps’ contractors have removed rock using large excavators, not dynamite, Mr. Petersen said. If the excavator work becomes impossible in coming days, then contractors will “start blowing stuff up,” he said. The Corps hasn’t dynamited rocks in the river since the severe drought of 1988 and 1989.

The Corps’ work is requiring temporary stoppages of river traffic, but barges are still moving by Thebes daily, Mr. Petersen said.

To keep river levels up, the Corps also has begun releasing water from a lake in Illinois. The Corps also said Tuesday that it would release more water beginning Wednesday from a reservoir along the Missouri River, which flows into the Mississippi River. After work is completed at Thebes, Corps contractors will remove rocks at Grand Tower.

Business groups, which want the Corps to release more water from Missouri River reservoirs, are still anxious.

“The Corps is trying to be helpful, but is also putting the best spin on it that it can,” said Debra Colbert, spokeswoman for the Waterways Council Inc., a trade group for shippers and carriers.

If the region doesn’t get significant rainfall or the Corps doesn’t release more water, “We are still looking at an effective closure” by the second week of January, she said.

Severe stoppages along the Mississippi from St. Louis to Cairo, would create a major bottleneck, carriers say, especially for barges traveling on the Illinois River, which winds from near Chicago to the Mississippi just north of St. Louis.

Questions

1. Why has the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers begun removing rocks protruding from the bottom of a stretch of the Mississippi River?

2. How do the companies that use the river to transport goods say the receding Mississippi will affect their businesses?

3. How does the Army Corps of Engineers view of the drought-stricken Mississippi differ from those who use it to transport goods?

4. The Corps was originally going to begin demolition work in February or March 2013. Why did they begin 2 months early?

5. Read the “Background” below the questions. Watch the videos under “Resources.”
a) Do you think the Corps of Engineers is taking the drought on the Mississippi seriously enough?
b) What do think of the job they are doing? (impressive, inadequate, etc.) Explain your answer.

Background

CLEARING THE MISSISSIPPI OF ROCKS:

The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers on Tuesday began clearing rocks from a shallow stretch of the drought-hit Mississippi River – its largest such undertaking in at least 25 years – to maintain the flow of billions of dollars’ worth of goods to Gulf Coast ports.
A shipping superhighway that links much of the central United States to the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi is near record-low levels due to the worst U.S. drought since 1956.
Using a fleet of excavators and barges with extensions that allow the vessels to ‘stand’ on the river bed, the Corps began its task of removing 900 cubic yards of limestone stretching over six miles near Thebes, Illinois.
The work, which could take a month to 45 days, is expected to hamper the movement of barges carrying grain from production centers to export terminals at the U.S. Gulf as well as upriver shipments of fertilizer, coal and road salt.
“Right now they’re removing rocks through mechanical means using spud barges and excavators,” said Army Corps spokesman Mike Petersen, referring to barges with ‘legs.’
“They also have a piece of equipment called a hydrohammer, basically a huge aquatic jackhammer, to break up bigger chunks of rock for excavation.”
“The water is so low right now that an excavator can reach down to the very bottom and knock these rock pinnacles down. They’ve had a lot of success with that and it also reduces the timeline and the cost,” he told Reuters by telephone.
The next phase of the excavation would involve the use of explosives to break up the rocks along that stretch.
Storms moving through the U.S. Plains and Midwest are poised to add a few inches of water to the river, according to river forecasts by the National Weather Service, possibly delaying what many believed would be an effective end to navigation in late December.
The Mississippi River at St. Louis on Monday was forecast to recede by nearly two feet by the end of the month, but as of Tuesday morning the forecast showed a 1.5-foot drop.
The Waterways Council, a river shipping industry group, initially expected the river would be effectively closed by Dec. 10 due to low water.
But recent rains as well as steps by the Army Corps to release water from Carlyle Lake, a southern Illinois reservoir, have pushed back the forecast to about Jan. 10, said Debra Colbert, senior vice president of the Waterways Council.
“At least we’ll be able to get some barges past but it’s still a significant disruption.”(from reuters)

THE UNITED STATES ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS:

The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is a federal agency and a major Army command made up of some 36,000 civilian and military personnel, making it the world’s largest public engineering, design and construction management agency.

Although generally associated with dams, canals and flood protection in the United States, USACE is involved in a wide range of public works support to the nation and the Department of Defense throughout the world.

The Corps of Engineers provides outdoor recreation opportunities to the public, and provides 24% of U.S. hydropower capacity.

The Corps’ mission is to provide vital public engineering services in peace and war to strengthen the nation’s security, energize the economy, and reduce risks from disasters.

Their most visible missions include:

Planning, designing, building, and operating locks and dams. Other civil engineering projects include flood control, beach nourishment, and dredging for waterway navigation.
Design and construction of flood protection systems through various federal mandates.
Design and construction management of military facilities for the Army and Air Force and other Defense and Federal agencies.
Environmental regulation and ecosystem restoration.

The Corps’ vision is having a great engineering force of highly disciplined people working with partners through disciplined thought and action to deliver innovative and sustainable solutions to the nation’s engineering challenges. (from wikipedia)