RIVER INPSECTION: NEW CORPS BOAT TO STOP HERE IN SPRING

The Army Corps of Engineers Motor Vessel Mississippi V, now nearing completion at a Mississippi shipyard, will make its first stop at Cape Girardeau this spring on its maiden voyage up the Mississippi River to St. Louis.

The occasion is the start of the annual High Water Inspection Tour held each April by the Lower Mississippi River Commission at Vicksburg, Miss.

The tour begins in late April at St. Louis, and will include stops at Cape Girardeau, Cairo, New Madrid, Memphis, and other places along the lower Mississippi River to New Orleans and Morgan City, La. The exact schedule will be announced later.

The $21.8 million, 241-foot towboat and inspection vessel was built by Halter Marine Inc. The Mississippi V is the fifth boat to carry the name and is the flagship of the Corps' fleet.

The boat was launched last September and is nearing completion at Halter's Mosspoint, Miss., shipyard. The boat is scheduled to be delivered to the Corps in February.

Earlier, it was thought the Mississippi V might make a stop at the Southeast Missouri Regional Port Authority's public dock five miles southeast of Cape Girardeau for one of the corps commission's public hearings. But a commission spokesman said instead that the Mississippi V will stop at New Madrid for the first public hearing.

The spokesman said it's possible the Mississippi V might make a stop at the Southeast Missouri port during the commission's Low Water Inspection Tour in September.

The Lower Mississippi River Commission was created in 1879. The commission is charged by Congress with making two annual inspection trips - usually in April and September - on the Mississippi River, from Cape Girardeau to New Orleans, to meet with public officials and citizens in towns along the river to discuss Corps projects and policies relating to flood control, navigation, and other matters.