OFFICIALS OF NEW LEVEES CONCERNED ABOUT RISING MISSISSIPPI RIVER

Levee officials along the Mississippi River in Alexander County, Ill., and Perry County, Mo., are uneasy about this week's river forecast, which calls for a 44-foot crest in the Cape Girardeau area Saturday.

The level of protection by the Boise Brule levee in southeast Perry County is about that (44 feet), said Bill Gidcomb of the St. Louis District of the U.S. Corps of Engineers and resident manager of construction on the Bois Brule levee. "But we don't like to see that kind of water here at this point."

Gidcomb said the new section of levee has been built to a height of nearly 380 feet above sea level, or 43 feet on the Chester, Ill., gauge.

"According to the latest river forecast, the river could reach 40 to 41 feet on the Chester gauge before cresting this weekend," said Gidcomb. "There's also some preventative things that can be done here -- pumping operations, gates closed."

That's not the situation at the Fayville Levee near Miller City, Ill.

Comer Phillips, assistant department resident engineer in charge of the levee construction, said: "We still lack about four feet of sand to bring the levee to its sought-after elevation in the Miller City area, and we have a lot of work to do on the north end of the levee.

"Starting Tuesday, we're back to 24 hours a day," added Phillips.

Work had slowed on the levee in recent days, and crewmen were working a single eight-hour shift daily.

"We ran out of good sand, and we were picking sand up here and there," said Phillips. "We have a good base on the levee, about four feet below our planned elevation."

With the expected 44-foot river crest, Phillips said they were improvising.

"We're removing fill from half of the current levee and building up the second half to the required height," said Phillips. "The levee will only be half as wide, but we're putting good material there, and hoping it will hold."

The north end of the level has not been built up, "but, with two or three days left before the expected crest, we'll have time to bring it up to the needed elevation," said Phillips.

The new levee is being built at an elevation of 332 above sea level, with the width ranging from 130 to 300 feet. A short stretch of the new Miller City Road will be atop the new Fayville Levee. Because it is a private levee, the repairs are being done by the Illinois Department of Transportation instead of the Corps of Engineers under an agreement with the levee district.

The new Fayville Levee begins at a point where it ties in with the existing Fayville levee and curves along the west side of a mile-long 80-foot-deep scour hole, to a point about 3,000 feet west of the Miller City blacktop road, where it will tie in with the north end of the existing level.

Water is coming from a second source during the spring flooding -- the Ohio River.

"When the Mississippi was at its flood stage of 1993, the Ohio was down," said Phillips. "Once the Mississippi waters reached the confluence of the Ohio at Cairo, there were some backwater areas for the water to go."

This time around, the Ohio River is up, too.

The Ohio, eight feet above flood stage at Cairo, is expected to rise another five or six feet by Saturday's crest at 54 feet. Cairo's Ohio River levee system will protect the city to over 60 feet, but with the higher stage does not allow any extra space for the waters of the rampaging Mississippi.