By Jacob McCleland/ Angela Hatton
Cape Girardeau, MO – The Army Corps of Engineers is looking at building a new floodway on the Mississippi River. The Corps utilized three of its four floodways on the Mississippi this spring, including the Birds Point floodway in southeast Missouri. The Corps designed its original management plan in the 1930s. It includes two floodways in southern Arkansas and northern Louisiana. Corps spokesperson Bob Anderson says the state and residents never approved those plans.
"I think today, you know, there is a possibility that if you improve the system, that people would be willing to work with you. So we're going to look at all of those possibilities to see if another floodway would be appropriate to make the system stronger."
Anderson says that initiate estimates to rebuild the system range from 700 million and 1.4 billion dollars. Those estimates could go as high as 2 billion dollars once the remaining floodwaters pass through the system.