News

Recent rains improve river traffic

Recent rain in the Midwest has helped improve the flow of the Mississippi River. 

Lou Dell’Orco is Chief of Operations for the Army Corps of Engineers St. Louis District.  He tells Brownfield the water levels changed drastically since early last week. “They’re up around 10 on the St. Louis gage, and it was a significant jump because we were at about minus two.”

Dell’Orco says the Mississippi River has persistently been in low water conditions for about three years, so the rise is a welcome sight, even though it has brought some flooding issues. “With the debris that gets sucked into the river, we’ve actually had to suspend our dredging operations for about a week.”

Dell’Orco says it’s unclear how long river levels can stay at this level, but despite a dry year, they’ve been able to maintain a nine-foot deep and 300-foot-wide channel for barge traffic with cooperation between the river industry, the Coast Guard, and the Corps of Engineers.  He says dredging used to wrap up for the season around Christmas, but for the last few years, they’ve been able to continue dredging into late January or early February.