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NewsAugust 24, 2003

Low water on the Mississippi River forced the U.S. Coast Guard to close two northern stretches of the river last week to allow for dredging. The closures raise concerns that low water may threaten barge traffic locally. The most recent closure occurred Friday after barges ran aground just south of the Jefferson Barracks Bridge at St. Louis...

Low water on the Mississippi River forced the U.S. Coast Guard to close two northern stretches of the river last week to allow for dredging. The closures raise concerns that low water may threaten barge traffic locally.

The most recent closure occurred Friday after barges ran aground just south of the Jefferson Barracks Bridge at St. Louis.

Barge traffic at St. Louis should resume by Monday and may resume as soon as today, said Chief Petty Officer Scott Vin Camp in St. Louis.

Vin Camp said no hazardous materials were involved in the grounding. A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredge is working at the site.

Thursday, the Coast Guard restricted barge traffic at Davenport, Iowa, due to low water. The Corps hoped to clear the channel at Davenport this weekend.

Vin Camp said fleet boats are still able to move empty barges within the closed, three-mile stretch of river at St. Louis. But commercial transportation of cargo has been halted.

The river at Cape Girardeau is at 6.9 feet. It is expected to rise to 7.5 feet by Tuesday before starting to fall again. The figure is based on a river gauge and is not the actual depth of the channel.

Cape groundings

Two barges grounded near the new Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge on Aug. 15 due to low water. "That was a good indication that the water was getting pretty low," said Reece Sanders, a Cape Girardeau man who was co-owner of a barge company in Wood River, Ill., until last year.

Sanders said low water becomes dangerous to barge traffic when the river level drops quickly. Barge operators have worried about a federal court order that lowered flows of the Missouri River for three days beginning Aug. 12. The order reduced releases from the reservoir at Gavins Point Dam in South Dakota from 26,000 cubic feet per second to 21,000 cubic feet per second. The order came in response to a suit by conservation groups seeking to protect nesting areas of the least tern and piping plover and the spawning environment for the pallid sturgeon.

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When the river falls quickly, it doesn't have time to scour out the channel, and the crossings where the river bends then become shallow, Sanders said.

"The crossings are always shallow water, and when the river falls pretty fast it gets down low and can't scour that fast," he said.

He predicted the effects of the reduction in Missouri River water will take about a week to reach Cape Girardeau.

The National Weather Service's 28-day forecast calls for the Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau to fall to 4.6 feet by Sept. 3 and to 4.3 feet by Sept. 10. Barge company officials say levels that low can mean more problems with docking and groundings.

However, the NWS forecast only accounts for observed runoff and does not take into account rain that may fall in the next 28 days. The agency's precipitation forecast for the next month is for normal rainfall.

Mike Nadolski, a meteorologist in the Paducah, Ky., office, said recent rains in Iowa and Illinois have not yet shown up at the Cape Girardeau Mississippi River gauge.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182

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