CORPS OUTLINES PURPOSE OF RIVER NAVIGATION STUDY

A 21st-century overhaul could be in store for the aging system of locks and dams on the Upper Mississippi River, depending on the findings of an Army Corps of Engineers study now under way.

The study, being conducted by three districts of the Corps, is called the Upper Mississippi River-Illinois Waterway System Navigation Study. To be completed in 1999, its aim is to assess both the commercial navigational needs along the 1,200 miles of waterways on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois rivers and the environmental impact of river traffic.

Five people, most of them associated with the river transportation industry, attended a public meeting about the study Thursday night at Central Junior High School.

"We have an aging infrastructure of locks and dams that have not only met their physical capacity but also have exceeded their projected life of 50 years," said Dave Leake, chief of the Plan Formulation Branch for the Corps' St. Louis District.

The existence of new lock-and-dam technology and a lack of previous research into the effect of river traffic on ecological systems mean dramatic changes could be proposed to Congress when the study is complete, Leake said.

The options are to keep rehabilitating the existing system, which Leake called "Putting Band-Aids on as we have the last 10 years," do major rehabilitations or even perhaps to build new locks and dams that will accommodate much larger tows.

Most of the locks in existence were built to handle tows 600-feet long, while most tows are double that size, said Rich Astrack, St. Louis District study manager.

Even though no locks on dams exists on what the Corps calls the "open river" between St. Louis and Cairo, Ill., changing the navigational system to the north will affect river traffic here, Astrack said.

He said the navigational study also will be useful to those conducting the flood control study authorized by Congress in the wake of the Flood of '93.