Weekly News Summary For January 18, 2010:
Probably no waterway has been the subject of as much intense, public scrutiny over the last two decades as the Missouri River.
Each winter, the Corps of Engineers’ Northwestern Division conducts a process of hearings and public comment periods to develop an Annual Operating Plan for the regulation of water releases from the six large upstream reservoirs. In addition, the Corps just completed a revision of its Master Manual for Missouri River operations; mired in controversy, the revision process took the better part of a decade to complete. More recently, the stakeholders in the river basin formed the Missouri River Recovery Implementation Committee (MRRIC), which includes representatives from federal agencies, tribes, states, local governments and non-governmental stakeholders. Other studies have focused on ecosystem restoration, and on the chances for improving commercial navigation on the river.
Now, at the direction of Congress, the Corps is undertaking yet another Missouri River study. The Missouri River Authorized Purposes Study (MRAPS) is a review of the eight original project purposes established by the 1944 Flood Control Act—flood control, navigation, irrigation, water supply, fish and wildlife habitat, power generation, recreation and water quality—and whether those purposes should be reprioritized. North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan had authorization for the study—and $25 million to fund it—included in the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009.
The study process began last October, with two regional listening sessions in Kansas City, Mo., and Omaha, Neb. Currently, the study is in an “outreach” phase, prior to a formal scoping phase this summer. This phase includes a series of focus group sessions, personal interviews with stakeholders, and an online survey, all performed for the Corps by contractor Osprey Group and the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution.
One of the focus group sessions was held in St. Louis January 11. Fourteen people, representing a wide variety of stakeholders, were chosen from lists consisting of thousands of names of people who have been involved in some way in the many previous studies. Representatives of Osprey Group led them with questions on their priorities for the Missouri River, and asked for suggestions on how the Corps should conduct the study….
The Army Corps of Engineers announced January 14 that it was ready to haul two repaired miter gate leaves back to the Markland Locks and Dam near Warsaw, Ohio, on January 18. It will take about 12 hours for the gates to be transported on the DeLong barge. They will be installed in the lock chamber with the Henry M. Shreve gatelifter.
Remaining work will continue on the site, including replacing the pintle balls, and replacing and adjusting the miter and quoin blocks. To dewater the lock, the emergency gate will have to be raised at the upstream end and maintenance bulkheads installed on the lower end.
A structure called a Poiree dam will be set in the chamber to isolate the lower gates. It enables the lock to be partly filled with water, but provides a dry corridor parallel to the bulkheads where crews can work on the miter gate components. It also allows a higher pool elevation on the lower end, and allows some water in the lock that exerts a lateral pressure, which lessens the pressure of the river outside. Pool elevations need to be closely monitored, since winter is usually a high-water period.
The installation of these structures should take several days, the Corps said.
Louisville District Commander Col. Keith Landry said four to five more weeks of work remains before the main 1,200-foot lock chambers can be reopened. “If the river continues to run low, we plan to finish the work, rehang the gates and return the lock chamber to service by March 1,” he said.
The fight over keeping Asian carp out of the Great Lakes became national news last month when Michigan sued Illinois, the Corps of Engineers, and Chicago’s Water Reclamation District to force them to close locks that connect Chicago area waterways to Lake Michigan, and thus the rest of the Great Lakes.
Michigan’s suit was later joined by Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York, Ohio, and the province of Ontario. It is being opposed by the Obama administration, the barge industry, and an increasing array of other interests, including businesses in northern Indiana and other areas that fear being cut off from less expensive waterborne shipping.
But the conflicts underlying the suit—conflicts that threaten to unravel a newly achieved agreement among Great Lakes partners—have been developing over decades.
In the late 19th century, the rapidly expanding city of Chicago had a hard time keeping up with its own sewage and waste. This was a time when it was beginning to be known as the “slaughterhouse of the world.” At that time the Chicago River flowed into Lake Michigan, and Chicago’s ever-increasing waste was dumped right into the river, polluting the lake, from which Chicago drew its drinking water.
In 1885, civil engineer Lyman Edgar Cooley came up with the idea of reversing the flow of the Chicago River to drain water and waste away from Lake Michigan and through the Des Plaines and Illinois River into the Mississippi River. While sanitation was the original concern, many, of course, also appreciated the transportation benefits of connecting the river system around Chicago with the Great Lakes….
Ice from the middle and upper reaches of the Upper Mississippi River moved toward the junction with the Ohio River last week but caused no serious problems for area river operators. Much of the accumulation came from the Alton Pool area as it was flushed from the locks where it had floated in from the Illinois and Missouri rivers.
Most seriously affected by ice floes were vessel and lock operators at Smithland Locks and Dam at Ohio River Mile 918.5, where lockmaster Denny Craig and his crews struggled with ice that blocked the lock gates from opening.
“This is probably only the third time since 1990 that we’ve had any problems with ice here at Smithland,” Craig said.
He said ice flowing from the Wabash River 70 miles upriver began to flow into the upper approaches to Smithland’s twin lock chambers early on January 9, but was not a serious problem until around midnight on January 12. Two days earlier, lock personnel were able to draw the accumulating ice away from the lock approaches by opening the dam’s spillway gates along the Kentucky shore, and were experiencing few problems, he said.
Around midnight January 12, however, the ice began accumulating again along the Illinois shore as it thickened and was not being drawn toward the Kentucky side of the dam, he explained. This allowed ice build-up above the locks’ miter gates and prevented them from recessing into the lock walls, when opening for traffic to enter or exit the locks. Although the facility is equipped with a large aerating system for flushing drift and debris from the gate recesses, it cannot accommodate continuous ice flows, he explained….
After a year of worldwide economic contraction unprecedented since the Great Depression, what are the signs and prospects for recovery on the rivers? Has the bad news concealed any opportunities?
Ken Eriksen, senior vice president of Informa Economics, an agriculture, commodity, and transportation consulting firm, and a frequent speaker at waterways conferences and events, said his company is predicting a modest recovery in the second half of 2010. “We don’t know whether or not it will be global, but a major driver will be demand from the Asian economies.”
Eriksen recently returned from speaking at a meeting of the Transportation Research Board in Washington, D.C., where he got the chance to talk with a wide variety of federal and state transportation officials. A common theme, he said, was unhappiness with the effects of stimulus spending from last year’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
What he heard is that much of the ARRA money is going unspent, and what is being spent is having little effect on employment and materials—at least when it comes to highways and bridges. “We’re repainting the highway with asphalt” is how one highway official described the stimulus spending, said Eriksen. Part of the reason is federal matching requirements, which the ARRA legislation did not waive. Some municipalities simply cannot afford to match the ARRA money. Local politics played a role as well, with the money having to be divided among a number of localities…..
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