Blunt asks Corps to release river reservoirs

A river committee has set a meeting for New Orleans next week to discuss the drought and low river levels.

The shrunken Mississippi River needs more water to support barge traffic, and Gov. Matt Blunt wants the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to provide it.

In a letter released Friday, Blunt asked John Paul Woodley, the assistant Army secretary in charge of the corps, to order major water releases from reservoirs on the Missouri River to support barge traffic on the Mississippi.

Barges operating on the Mississippi River have cut their loads so they ride higher in the water, said Jeff Stover, operations manager for Memco Barge Lines in Cape Girardeau and vice chairman of the Lower Mississippi River Committee.

Low water levels in 1988 stopped navigation on the Mississippi River for about two weeks near Greenville, Miss., Stover said. Current water levels are acceptable, he said.

"Right now I am content with our tow sizes in the industry," he said. "Everybody is coming and going. Everything is fine."

Barges are operating on a 9-1/2-foot draft, instead of the normal 12-foot, he said. The draft is the depth of a barge below the water.

The corps is currently relying on dredging operations, such as that being done by the dredge America near Trail of Tears State Park, to keep the Mississippi deep enough for barges. By law, the corps must maintain a navigation channel 300 feet wide and nine feet deep.

The river committee, a group of barge operators and government officials from the corps, the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Weather Service, has set a meeting for New Orleans next week to discuss the drought and low river levels, Stover said. The "waterways crisis action" group, Stover said, will discuss how to respond to low water levels on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.

Low water upstream from Cairo, Ill., forced the Ohio River to close temporarily this week. The latest long-term projections forecast the Mississippi River to fall to 5.1 feet at Cape Girardeau by early September and to minus-10 feet at Memphis, Tenn.

The river gauge read 6.5 feet at Cape Girardeau late Friday and minus-7.7 feet at Memphis. River gauges are based on a low-water mark set during early settlement along the river. Zero on the gauge does not mean the river is dry.

Water at the forecast levels would mean big headaches for the barge industry, Stover said. "It would sure slow things down," he said. "But I don't think it will get to minus-10. I just think they are going to release more water up there."

The Missouri River is the only place where additional water could come from to support traffic on the Mississippi River between St. Louis and the mouth of the Ohio River. The Missouri is currently providing more than half of the Mississippi's water in that stretch.

At Thebes, Ill., the Mississippi on Friday was flowing at 75,200 cubic feet per second. That is less than half the average flow for the date, according to data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

Any attempt to increase releases from upstream dams on the Missouri River is likely to re-ignite a feud between Missouri and states in the northern Great Plains. Those reservoirs are already low because of extended drought, costing those areas millions of dollars in recreation revenues.

But Blunt said the damage to Missouri farmers this fall should be the Corps' top concern. If barge traffic stops on the Mississippi, he wrote to Woodley, the Corps' own figures show about $6.5 million a day in total economic losses.

The Corps currently plans to cut back on Missouri River levels in mid-October. That could threaten traffic on the Mississippi at harvest time, Blunt said.

"It is vitally important that river traffic on the Mississippi be allowed to move unabated," Blunt said in a news release issued along with the letter. "Missouri's farm families and other businesses depend on effective river transit as does our state's economy."

The Ohio River could provide more water for the lower Mississippi if the Tennessee Valley Authority will release water from reservoirs on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, Stover said.

"That doesn't happen a lot of times," he said.

TVA water is used to provide hydroelectric power for millions of customers in the Southeast.

rkeller@semissourian.com

335-6611 ext. 126