The Realities of the Mississippi, the Missouri,the Atchafalaya, the Louisiana Coast, and New Orleans

Last week a pair of geologists, at the University of Texas, Austin, proposed diverting the Mississippi and its sediment to Breton Sound on the east and Barataria Bay to the west in order to build new deltas in each body of water.They would make the diversions about ninety miles south of New Orleans, my guess near Grand [...]

East St. Louis and Vicinity Hydrogeomorphic Project

It is said, and is probably true, that the American Bottoms can never have an adequate system of drainage without lowering the bed of the Mississippi. The drainage question of the Bottoms has for many years been an unsolved problem, and will probably remain so until some freak of nature shall settle the vexed question.”[i] [...]

Wing Dams, the Mississippi, and Clean Renewable Energy

 
South of Alton, Illinois the Mississippi is an open river, unencumbered by dams. Here, Congress requires the St. Louis District of the Corps of Engineers to maintain a nine-foot navigation channel. It does so with channel-training devices, wing dams or dikes, which speed up the current, direct it to the center of the river, and [...]

The Stimulus: Ecosystem as Infrastructure $3.16 Million for Habitat Restoration in Midwest

 
 The Midwest Region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will get $28.5 million for its refuges and facilities. Of that $3.16 million will go to habitat restoration.
The Mingo NWR will get a $2.8 million visitor center, which will be handicap accessible and energy efficient.

Twenty thousand years ago the Mississippi River flowed along the western [...]

Ecosystems as Infrastructure–The Stimulus Bill

I am so glad to find I am wrong. There is money in the stimulus bill for the Upper Mississippi Navigation and Ecosystem Sustainability Program, $8,604,000 to be exact.
The stimulus bill will fund first phases of construction of new 1,200-foot locks on the first five dams north of St. Louis. It will implement small-scale navigation aids, [...]

Straight Canals and Meandering Bayous

 
Water doesn’t run in a straight line, not even on your windshield.  
Through coarse sediment, sand and gravel it can run in a braided pattern, but through soft, fine alluvial soil it runs in a meandering pattern. 
Tim Carruthers made this aerial of a navigation canal cutting through the meandering bayous in the Louisiana marshes. I [...]

Infrastructure–The Stimulus Bill

 
The Corps will receive $4.6 billion nationwide, including $2 billion for waterways construction of which $500 million will go to repair locks and dams and $200 million for dam safety.
Only projects that have received previous funding are eligible for stimulus funds. The Corps lay out priorities and accelerate existing contracts or fund projects that can [...]

Infrastructure: Morganza-to-the-Gulf Hurricane Protection

 
 
 

 
 
During the Fall of 2006 it was apparent at Dulac, Lower Dulac, and on Bayou du Large that the activities the marshes generate–the shrimping, the crabbing, the fishing, and the new fishing camps raised on stilts–disguised the disaster than had happened the year before and the disaster happening underfoot. The land is sinking at the [...]

Infrastructure–Old River, History

In 1831 Capt. Henry Shreve cut across the neck of Turnbull’s Point Bar and shortened the length of the Mississippi by several miles.
The lower part mouth of the Red River and the head of the Atchafalaya. Water flowed back and forth between the Red/Atchafalaya and the Mississippi depending on the level of the Mississippi. In [...]

Infrastructure–Old River Control

 

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Old River Control complex included the Old River Low Sill and Overbank Structures completed in 1962, the Old River Navigation Lock completed in 1963, and the Auxiliary Structure completed in 1986. Within the Old River Control project area the Corps of Engineers manages 3,000 acres in fee [...]