The Upper Mississippi River and Illinois Waterways Rehabilitation and Expansion study

Past

Present

Future
The Corps of Engineers are legally bound to manage the Mississippi as a multi-purpose resource through the enactment of various federal laws, Corps engineering regulations and interagency agreements. Yet the Corps continues to manage the system stressing the navigation project.

The Study to find if it was feasible to do major construction on locks on the Upper Mississippi and two new locks on the Illinois rivers was halted due to misconduct by military and civilian employees acting to manipulate certain portions of the economics review to achieve justification of lock expansion. This misconduct was revealed by a Corps whistleblower.

Previous releases of the study did NOT show complete environmental mitigation costs NOR determine ability of system to handle more traffic NOR present completed cost/benefit analysis. If such expansion were truly necessary, then the manipulation would never have occurred to justify expansion. This is why we request that no action on any expansion takes place without the required studies.  

The Corps NOW ADMITS, as pointed out by the National Research Council review, that the previous study was slanted to the economic justification of the study and did NOT provide adequate review of environmental impacts. 

During the recent decades of major rehabilitation work on the locks and dams, over a BILLION dollars since 1986 has been spent on the infrastructure, while only $220 MILLION has been invested in the Environmental Management Plan to try and stem some of the decline in the ecosystem.

On August 02, 2001 in the Corps Guidance for restart of the study issued by M.G. Griffin, HQUSACE, it is stated that: “The ecosystem on both waterways has been in decline, and there is considerable concern that the growing barge traffic may accelerate the decline, perhaps precipitously.”  

 

The Army Corps of Engineers is moving forward on a significantly restructured study that will encompass navigation’s environmental impacts on the river systems, but the environmental community still has concerns over its legitimacy. The Piasa Palisades Group feels that independent peer review is necessary and requested. 

We question how the Corps can consider increasing traffic from barges while the past and present problems are not yet resolved. These problems include, but are not limited to degradation due to siltation and resuspension of sedimentation, loss of backwaters, and the specific impacts fleeting has, such as impaired fish habitat access, mussel bed kills, prevention of vegetation growth, and silt dredging. We feel that the current form of mitigation needs to be stepped up, accounted for, and monitored for success.

The study is due to be completed in 2004. There is currently a push from the navigation industry and several agribusiness commodity organizations and the American Farm Bureau for immediate authorization of five lock expansions on the Upper Mississippi and two new locks on the Illinois.   

We submit that the Corps should actively discourage those reckless requests and continue to encourage the industry groups to keep participating and supporting the collaborative process that is beginning to show some success, and allow the study to proceed to conclusion.

  

 

  

 

 

 

 There are real and critical environmental impacts to the ecosystem from navigation that require thorough NEPA analysis and response in the manner of up-front mitigation and restoration activity. The study will outline mitigation programs and identify restoration needs.

The Upper Mississippi River attracts more visitors annually than Yellowstone National Park, pulling in an estimated $1.6 BILLION annually in tourism dollars, which are threatened by the decline in the ecosystem.  That is more than the Corps estimated $400 MILLION annually in net return on the currently operating navigation system.

We envision this study, not a study for study’s sake, but that the science will lend itself to develop the proper mitigation and identify restoration needs.

It is of dire necessity that the restart of this study must give the attention needed to reversing decades of abuse of these waterways. Our rivers are a national treasure and each and every aspect of the environmental management needs must be treated as an equal project purpose with any navigation considerations. As a lead Federal agency responsible for water resources, the Army Corps of Engineers own engineering regulations require districts to modify and expand their management objectives to fulfill this new vision the public has demanded. We expect to see this upheld in the Study.

We would also like to note that the United States transportation system is and will remain the best in the world (including the navigation system) with current structures in place.  For South America to catch up, they will require tens of billions in investment and the World Bank lacks funds to implement that kind of improvement.