At Riverlands: If you build it, they will come. With a bow to William Kinsella.

When I first started my work on the Mississippi River, I went up to Riverlands to listen to the people up there who know wetlands and birds. They defined the success of Riverlands as a bird sanctuary: “If you build it, they will come.” Congress ordered the Corps to replace “acre for acre” every bit [...]

Two River Birthdays in the Last Week

 
We celebrate two birthdays that are important to the Mississippi River and its ecosystem this week.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service just celebrated the 85th birthday of the Upper Mississippi National Fish and Wildlife Refuge, which I noted last week has been designated a Wetland of International Importance.
The refuge came into being after after the [...]

The Grand Chain

 

Chain of Rocks Bridge

Two projects came together on the Chain of Rocks Bridge. I first this eccentric bridge in the 1960s on a return trip from Peoria, Illinois. My father, always intent on broadening my horizons, drove my across this bridge at the northern edge of St. Louis. I returned to it many times before [...]

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 [...]

Earth Day: MRGO Closed

 
It’s Earth Day 2009 and MRGO is closed to navigation, but it’s still there, still conveying salt water into the intermediate and fresh wetlands of the Pontchartrain Basin. Until it is truly closed and filled in, it is not really gone.
We have already seen the damage it caused to Bayou Bienvenue in the the immediate [...]

Throwing Stones at MRGO–Part 2

 
The Corps of Engineers will finish the rock wall across MRGO by the beginning of this year’s hurricane season. At seven feet it is not tall enough to stop storm surges, but it will stop salt water intrusion into the marshes east of the Bayou la Loutre ridge and the MRGO spoil bank.
 
Not everyone is [...]

Confluence and the North American Wetlands Conservation Act

 
The Migratory Bird Conservation Commission, chaired by Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar, approved a $999,570 grant under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA) for wetland restoration in the Confluence Region of Missouri.
The Great Rivers Habitat Alliance calls this peninsula the Confluence Floodway and this region between the Missouri and [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

The Mississippi, the Atchafalaya, and a Pipeline to Colorado

 
I came across this interesting article from the Valley Courier in Alamosa, Colorado today:
A Gunnison, Colorado hay farmer wants to tap the Mississippi River and funnel Mississippi River water to Colorado through  a 22-inch, 1,200-mile long  pipeline from Hickman, Kentucky on the Mississippi to Colorado to alleviate the water shortage in the western U.S. Alamosa, by the way, [...]