CRACK FORMS IN ILLINOIS LEVEE; CORPS OF ENGINEERS ADDS ROCK IN AN ATTEMPT TO STOP THE LEAK

A 50-foot crack developed in the Fayville-Miller City agricultural levee near Olive Branch Wednesday. Corps of Engineers officials hoped to stop the leak with additional rock today.

"We filled the crack with sandbags, and the Corps said we would have six barges of rock at the site Thursday morning," said Louis Maze, an Alexander County commissioner who has been keeping watch on the levee.

The crack appeared shortly after noon Wednesday in the crown of the private levee, forcing authorities to order the immediate evacuation of floodworkers in case it fails.

Bill Busch of the Corps of Engineer's Cape Girardeau District Office said the crack was located at the north end of the levee, along the upper end of Santa Fe Chute, three miles west of Olive Branch, Ill., or almost due east of Commerce.

Busch said the crack was observed at about 12:30 p.m. "The authorities ordered everyone off the levee as a safety precaution," he said.

Busch said the crack was caused by the swift current in Santa Fe Chute that has now carved out a large section of the steep, vertical bank on which the levee is built. He said the current is now attacking the levee itself, and said the crack is an indication that portion of the levee may be about to slide off into Santa Fe Chute.

If the levee does break, Busch said the impact probably won't be as great as it would have been when the river crested Aug. 7, at 47.9 feet on the Cape Girardeau gauge.

"Most of the people who live near the levee have already moved out. If the levee fails now, at today's river stage (43.4 feet) it would have the most impact on buildings west of Olive Branch on the Fayville Road, and along the east and west sides of Horseshoe Lake, along the Miller City Road. It may not affect Olive Branch proper at all, especially those houses along the (Route 3) highway," he said. "If it does, it would not be as great as it would have been two weeks ago."

Until this week, the Corps was providing rock to the levee district to help stop the erosion of the river bank and levee west of Olive Branch. But this week, the Corps stopped its shipment of rock.

Busch said the decision was made at higher Corps levels and based on Corps policy and regulations concerning levees.

He explained the Fayville-Miller City levee was designed and built as a private agricultural levee to prevent strong currents of water from eroding farmland west of Olive Branch and Miller City.

"The levee was never designed to keep water out of populated areas, such as Olive Branch. It is an open-ended levee at its south end and water does come up behind the levee when the river is flooding," Busch explained. "Because it is an open-ended, agricultural levee, our regulations prohibit us from expending as much manpower and materials as one of our mainline levees."

Maze said, "We needed the rock help." He lives in the Olive Branch area, which is being threatened by the eroding conditions along the Len-Smal Levee District.

"The Corps of Engineers had earlier refused to give us more rock and an eddy in the (Mississippi) river is eating away at our levee."

Flood workers were recalled in the area following the Monday announcement that the Corps would provide no more rock for the levee.

Maze says more than 200 people have worked the past two days to save the agriculture levee, which could flood thousands of acres of land in the area should it break.

"The Corps says Monday that the levee was not life-threatening," said Maze. "They told us that if it breaks, only land no homes will be affected. But, officials here feel that some of the waters could back up into Olive Branch."

The Corps hauled in four barges of rock last weekend to build a toe-dike along the Fayville Levee to stop the erosion, but gave up its efforts.

"They (Corps) cut us off," said Maze. "We were told Monday that there would be no more help from the Corps. We called a special meeting, and a lot of people are helping."

About 70 workers, including a group of workers from the Dixon Springs Prison Work Camp, filled sand bags at the Horseshoe Lake Community Building. Volunteers are working to provide food and water to the workers.

"We're also receiving help from the National Guard and Soil Conservation agencies," said Maze. "We're trying to save the levee by using sandbags. We could lose it, but the good news now is that the river is falling, although the fall is slow."

The workers on the actual levee were ordered away from the site when the latest crack was discovered Wednesday. "We're waiting until the new rock arrives," said Maze.

"If we lose the levee, we'll lose more than farm land," he added. "There are some families which will have to be relocated, and some of the water could back up to Olive Branch."

Besides the levee problem at Olive Branch, the Illinois Department of Transportation is fighting its own battle to keep Route 3 open between Gale and East Cape Girardeau.

Seepwater inside the East Cape Girardeau-Clear Creek Levee District is threatening to cover the highway between East Cape Girardeau and Gale.

In fact, some water now covers parts of both lanes just north of the levee at Gale, but the highway is still open.

Over the weekend, the department's trucks hauled in more rock to raise the roadbed in some low spots that had been compacted by traffic. The raised area of the highway now extends from near the Route 3-146 junction, near East Cape, southward to a point about one-quarter mile north of levee. From there south to the levee, crews have built a sandbag dike along both sides of the shoulder to try to keep the seepwater out.

In addition, two 30-inch diesel-powered, hydraulic pumps were mounted over the weekend along the levee, near Gale, to pump out some of the seepwater that has accumulated along the highway.

Woody Gump, an engineer with the department's operations unit at Carbondale, said the state hopes the pumps will keep the seepwater off the highway near the levee. "It's going to be nip and tuck," he admitted. "The water was coming up at a pretty fast clip after last week's rainfall, but it's slowed down this week."

Gump said two smaller, 24-inch pumps are also pumping seepwater over the Clear Creek levee, into Clear Creek, just north of the Grapevine Trail.

"We're trying to reduce the amount of seepwater that's coming south, toward Highway 3," he explained. "The more we pump over the levee into Clear Creek, the less we have coming down there."

Gump emphasized the state has no intention of pumping out all of the seepwater that has accumulated inside the levee district since last spring. "We just hope we can reduce the amount of water coming toward the highway," he said.

On a positive note, Gump said on Thursday, department crews removed the temporary rock grade that was installed over Route 3, at both ends of the Big Muddy River, north of Ware. The grade was put in last month to prevent the backed-up Big Muddy from flowing out onto the highway and overtopping the levee. "The Mississippi has finally dropped enough so the Big Muddy is actually flowing westward again," he said.

The National Weather Service had some good news for weary floodworkers and victims. Forecasters say if no additional, prolonged and substantial rainfall occurs north of St. Louis after today, the Mississippi River is expected to drop below its 32-foot flood stage sometime between Sept. 10-13.

The river at Cape was at 43.4 feet on Wednesday. It was forecast to fall to 42.9 feet today, 42.3 feet on Friday, and 41.7 feet by Saturday.