Corps Chief Clears $8.3-Billion Mississippi River Plan
An $8.3-billion, 50-year Corps of Engineers plan for Upper Mississippi and Illinois River lock and dam expansion and ecosystem restoration has moved a step forward. Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock, the Army's Chief of Engineers, signed his "chief's report" outlining the plan late on Dec. 15 and has forwarded it to the John Paul Woodley, Jr., assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, for review. But the big hurdle lies in Congress, which must authorize the program and its individual projects and also provide annual appropriations before work can proceed.
The Corpshas been studying the "Upper Miss" and Illinois for 16 years at a cost of some $70 million. The overall 50-year plan now includes $5.7 billion for environmental restoration and $2.6 billion for navigation, including seven new locks and extensions to five others. The $8.3-billion total represents an increase of about $600 million from the Corps' draft report released last spring. A Corps official says the increase is due to indexing the projects' costs for inflation.