Tagged: Mississippi River

River navigation leaders want the Obama administration to take emergency action to avoid a river commerce shutdown. The Army Corps of Engineers is reducing flows on the Missouri River. That will drop Mississippi River levels by as much as four feet by Dec. 10.

The Waterways Council CEO Mike Toohey says the basic inputs of everyday life will not arrive at their destination if commerce is interrupted between St. Louis and Cairo, Illinois.

The Army Corps of Engineers has begun reducing the flow from a Missouri River reservoir, a move expected to worsen low water conditions on the Mississippi River and potentially halt barge traffic at St. Louis within weeks.

A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decision to limit Missouri River's flow into the Mississippi has representatives of the barge industry worried. The Corps plans to cut the amount of water discharged at Gavins Point Dam in South Dakota by 30 percent because of concerns of another drought in the Midwest next summer.

Northwestern Tennessee's long-planned Cates Landing Mississippi river port is set to open in early spring. Tri-County Port Authority Chair Jimmy Williamson says final site work at the Lake County port begins in November after storm debris from 2011 flooding is cleared from the river. Williamson says the port will bring heavy use from the commercial barge industry to northwest Tennessee.

Low water in the Mississippi River is delaying work on a new west Tennessee river port.  Cates Landing construction site project manager Michael Sanders says the low levels are delaying placement of rock, completion of piers at the site, dredging operations and work on the walkways, lighting, power and other site work.