KDSN RADIO News
Army Corps nearly done with repairs to aid Missouri River navigation
The Army Corps of Engineers has completed significant repairs and upgrades to levies, dikes and other structures damaged by flooding along the Missouri River five years ago. Clint Mason, the Corps’ Missouri River program manager, expects barge traffic to increase.
“Right now I think we’re seeing a resurgence of navigation after we’ve made the repairs over the last two years,” Mason says.
Officials estimate Midwest flooding in 2019 caused nearly $3 billion in damage. Congress allocated over $340 million to repair the Missouri River’s navigational channel. Army Corps offices in Kansas City and Omaha typically have total budgets around $10 million.
“An influx of $340 million-plus — it was definitely orders of magnitude above what we would get in a normal year,” Mason says, “and even more than what we’ve seen after past floods or other major events when we’ve had damages.”
There are about 7000 structures along the lower Missouri River, from Sioux City to St. Louis, that maintain a navigational channel that’s 300 feet wide and nine feet deep. Mason says the influx of funding was particularly helpful in addressing delayed maintenance of structures made of rock and stone.
“The rock breaks down with freeze thaw. High flow events will push the rock or move it off of our structures, things like that,” Mason says, “and so over time those rock structures require continual upkeep and maintenance.”
Low water levels in the river due to the recent drought helped speed along the Corps’ repairs. The Missouri River is the longest river in the U-S. It starts in Montana and drains into the Mississippi River at St. Louis.
