Weekly News Summary For November 21–27, 2005:
Representatives from Missouri politicians, state employees, barge interests and farmers voiced their opposition to the Corps draft 2005-2006 Annual Operating Plan (AOP) for the Missouri River at a public hearing conducted in St. Louis. Seven other public hearings were conducted throughout the basin this month.
The plan calls for two spring pulses, in March and May, with the peak of the rises lasting two days, to assist in the spawning of endangered pallid sturgeon below Gavins Point Dam.
The plan is contingent on system storage in the reservoirs. If 36.5 million acre-feet (maf.) of water does not exist in the reservoir system on March 1 and May 1, the river pulses will be delayed until 2007. A minimum storage of 40 maf. would be required for 2007 and beyond.
In turn, the plan could decrease the number of navigation days at the end of the 2006 season by several days. The navigation season was shortened by 48 days this year when support for navigation flows ended on October 14. In 2006, the navigation season can range from a shortening of 15 to 58 days, depending on flows generated from snowmelt.
Coastal restoration is essential to building and maintaining strong levees to protect South Louisiana, the 26-member Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA) was told at a meeting in New Orleans November 13.
“A Category 5 levee won’t last long with the Gulf of Mexico at its doorstep,” said Renee Cross, chairman of the levees and coastal restoration committee. “Linking the two is essential.”
Cross said rebuilding South Louisiana will not attract the return of residents if they do not feel levees provide a safe haven from future hurricanes.
Brig. Gen. Robert Crear, commander of the Mississippi River Valley Engineer Division, explained the process to obtain federal funding for levee construction. Gen. Crear agreed with an LRA board member that it normally takes about 11 years from inception to project completion for new Corps projects.
The LRA board formally requested technical assistance on hurricane and storm protection, ecosystem restoration, and recovery and restoration activities from the Corps of Engineers.
Crear agreed to establish a full-time liaison between the Corps and LRA….
As the Mississippi, Illinois, Missouri and Ohio river levels continue their record low water trends, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, working closely with the U.S. Coast Guard and the navigation industry, is maintaining continuous dredging operations to keep the region’s waterways open to navigation and commerce, the St. Louis Engineer District reports. The dredging season began July 30 and normally ends in December.
Peggy O’Bryan, the district’s chief of operations, said the current river conditions and the forecast for the weeks ahead are being watched closely.
“The lack of rainfall across the region is an obvious reason for concern,” she said. “We will be able to keep the channel open for navigation, but this also requires the coordination of all parties involved.”
The Coast Guard issued a low-water advisory November 14 recommending tow sizes and advising of possible future draft restrictions….
“River Critters” might become extinct along the inland waterways, but environmentalists need not be alarmed. We’re speaking of several veteran towboats—all with names beginning with “River” followed by the name of some kind of animal—that have either been renamed recently or sold to foreign operators by Excell Marine Corporation.
The Cincinnati-based firm has recently refurbished and renamed two of the boats it had previously renamed along with several others shortly after their purchase from the former Tolen Marine operation in 1997. It has sold two others—the River Falcon and River Otter—to South America.
The River Stallion, although a line haul boat when obtained from Tolen as the Basil T, has been transferred to the McGinnis Inc. shipyard operation at South Point, Ohio, according to Excell president Paul Klausen. He said paperwork has been submitted to change its name to Jim Lancaster in honor of an electrician who has been employed by McGinnis for 29 years.
The River Beaver is currently idled at South Point while company officials determine the feasibility of renovating and overhauling the vessel as it has done to several other boats in recent months.
Following major refurbishing and/or engine overhauls, the River Hawk has recently been renamed Dale Cathorall and the River Wolverine has been renamed Capt. Dick Morton. The former “River Critters” and the veteran sister ships Daniel Webster and Roy Mechling are the latest vessels to be renamed in the expanding Excell fleet….
A pre-dawn fire destroyed Ingram Barge Company’s warehouse at the Paducah waterfront on November 10. There were no injuries reported in the inferno, which acting Fire Marshal Jimmy Ewing said reached temperatures close to 1,000 degrees, buckling several roof beams. He said some of the beams were almost burned in half by the extreme temperatures.
According to a report in the Paducah Sun, the fire started between 3:30 and 4:30 a.m. and was extinguished by 6:00 a.m. A partially melted clock located 200 feet from the suspected point of origin stopped at 4:35 a.m.
Fortunately the fire was contained before reaching oxygen tanks, paints and other flammable materials stored for the many towboats serviced and provisioned at the firm’s Paducah operations center. Fire Chief Redell Benton said if the fire had not been contained, the building’s roof might have collapsed, preventing fire fighters from spraying water on the oxygen tanks or from keeping the fire from reaching the propane tanks on some fork lift trucks located inside the burning structure….
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