Corps’ Mississippi River ‘Mega-Study’ On Hold

The Lower Mississippi River Comprehensive Management Study (LMRCM) has been paused after receiving no funds in the Corps of Engineers’ FY 2025 work plan. The project team was also notified that previous president’s budget funds received during FY25 must be returned to the United States Treasury. So far, the study has received about $9.5 million, but it was unclear how much of that could or would be returned.

However, a separate study of the river, sponsored by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine and led by professors from Tulane University and Louisiana State University, continues thanks to $22 million in funding linked to the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Regarding the LMRCM study, the Corps announced on the project website, “As a result [of the funding pause], there is limited study funding available, and the study team is suspending all work. The study has completed critical engineering and planning work for the nation to provide a more resilient Mississippi River & Tributaries (MR&T) system in the future. Recent extreme high and low water events are creating stressors on the system as a whole, and the critical work in this study has proposed solutions to the future dynamic operation of structures within the system for continued successful flood risk management and navigational security.”

The study, announced in 2023, was designed to inform debates on how to manage the Mississippi River from Cape Girardeau, Mo., to its end in Louisiana. When the study was launched, Col. Cullen Jones, commander of the New Orleans Engineer District, said it would provide “the opportunity to consider this critical flood risk management system and identify what, if any, opportunities and modifications are needed to account for the change in river dynamics as well as the needs of the nation over the last century.”

If and when the funds are restored, the Corps said, the study will resume at the “Final Array of Alternatives” stage. The study has reached a final array of alternatives that includes constructable alternatives, identified tiered studies to tackle additional large-scale issues within the system and other opportunities for stakeholders to implement. Funding is needed to develop the tentatively selected plan and to make a recommendation for action to the Chief of Engineers and Congress.

In Louisiana, issues examined in the study include saltwater intrusion, operations of the Old River Control Structure near Angola and shipping concerns.

‘Who Do I Talk To?’

Speaking of the pause of the Lower Mississippi River Comprehensive Management Study, Sean Duffy, executive director of the Big River Coalition, said, “We’ll just have to weather this storm.” Big River Coalition is in the process of sponsoring its own study on the economic impact of the Lower Mississippi River that should be published later this year. Duffy noted that both studies—the now-suspended Corps comprehensive study and the one sponsored by the National Academies of Science—open with the question of whether navigation is “sustainable.”

“We’d better hope that it is, because everything else depends on that,” Duffy said. Navigation sustainability, in turn, depends on keeping the channel healthy and open—something, Duffy said, that legendary engineer James Buchanan Eads “knew 150 years ago,” when he closed off crevasses like Big Bayou that threatened to dilute the channel-scouring central flow of the Mississippi River.

“The Mississippi River between New Orleans and the Head of Passes is hemorrhaging water via three large crevasses, Mardi Gras Pass, Neptune Pass and the passes of Fort St. Phillip,” Duffy said. “All were created during high water events, and the lack of response to close these crevasses off threatens not only navigation but also our drinking water supply. The crevasses are basically straws, and the water flows away from the side with the most pressure. During high river, the crevasses grow and encourage deposition in the Ship Channel, and during low water events, saltwater ingresses into the river. Action is needed for proper riverine management to keep the flow in the river, which keeps commerce moving, scours the channel and repels saltwater.”

Duffy said that early retirements of personnel staffing the Corps of Engineers, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (on whose advisory committee he sits) and other key federal interlocutors and partners of the inland waterways industry are as impactful as the suspension of the study.

“People I’ve known for years are leaving, and it’s going to be hard to replace the institutional knowledge embodied in those people,” Duffy said. “It raises the question, ‘Who do I talk to?’”