By Todd Hatton
Murray, KY – An over one and a half million dollar U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study will look for ways to restore lost wildlife and plant habitat along the lower Mississippi River while maintaining flood defenses and navigation. The Nature Conservancy is giving four hundred thousand dollars to the study. Leaders of the environmental group hope to unseal many of the backwaters and side channels stopped up in efforts to confine the river to a single channel. Historically, those areas were key for wildlife populations. The study will examine areas from Cairo, Illinois, where the Ohio River joins the Mississippi, to the river's mouth. The study is scheduled for completion in 2014.