Army Corps of Engineers work on navigating the Missouri River – Missourinet

A huge influx of money to make the Missouri River a more reliable navigation channel has nearly been spent as the Army Corps of Engineers completes repairs and upgrades. Missouri River Program Manager, Clint Mason, said the Corps’ Kansas City office had never seen an allocation as large as the $340 million approved by Congress.

“So, our annual budget for operations and maintenance on the river in Kansas City is about $10-11 million,” he said. “So, whenever we get an influx of $340-plus million, it was definitely, you know, orders of magnitude above what we will get on a normal year. Even more, I think, then what we’ve seen after past floods or other major events.”

He said that the annual $10-11 million received for maintenance only had a portion designated for the river.

“Over time, it became evident that that wasn’t enough to keep all of the structures to their full criteria,” Mason said. “You know, the rock breaks down with freeze thaw, high flow events will push the rock or, you know, move it off our structures, things like that. Overtime, those rock structures require continual upkeep and maintenance.”

He said the Corps has spent most of the navigation maintenance fund, which he says should encourage more barge shipments on a more reliable Missouri River channel.

“I think we’re seeing a resurgence of navigation, now that we’ve made the repairs over the last two years, and I mentioned during the water, even the last couple of years the channels remained open and navigable the entire time,” Mason added.

He is seeing more navigation on the river than the Corps has had in the last 5-10 years, but a few more projects remain to be completed.

Mason asserted that a lack of maintenance along the Missouri River led directly to damage in wake of the 2011 and 2019 floods. The money, he said, will bring navigational structures back to their original strength. There are 5,000 such structures on the lower Missouri River.

By Brent Martin of Missourinet affiliate KFEQ in St. Joseph.

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