TONS OF SEDIMENT FLOWS PAST CAPE'S RIVER DOOR EVERY DAY

The Mississippi River carries a lot of sand and sediment that is suspended in the water. Most of it the result of soil erosion caused by poor soil conservation practices along the river and its major tributaries, said Claude Strauser, chief of Army Corps of Engineers.

But just how much of that floating real estate passes Cape Girardeau in a single day?

According to Strauser, with the Corps' potomology branch at St. Louis, on any given day when the Mississippi is at mid-bank level, about one million tons of suspended sediment passes Cape Girardeau.

"If you could somehow magically take all of that sediment out of the river and spread it on a land surface, in a single day you would produce 1,000 acres of rich, fertile soil six inches deep," Strauser said. "And keep in mind the river picks up even more sediment from the Ohio, the Black, St. Francis and other rivers as it drains southward.

By the time the river finally drops all of that sediment in its delta in Southeast Louisiana, a lot of good soil that could have been used to grow food has been lost forever, he said.