Page 23: of Marine News Magazine (May 2022)

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Feature

Inland Waterways

Consider the money within the U.S. Army Corps of En- gineers “Civil Works Program Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), 2022 Construction Spend Plan.” • In Arkansas, ACE is providing $92 million for con- struction of the MKARNS project and another $109.1 mil- lion to “physically complete and ? scally close out the project.”

MKARNS presents a number of complex challenges, including channel stability at the con? uence of the White, Arkansas, and

Mississippi Rivers, where the Arkansas and White naturally want to merge. Other challenges include aging infrastructure and channel depth. The big win is going from a nine-foot channel depth to 12 feet. That deeper level has been autho- rized but never realized. In previous studies the Corps esti- mated that a 12-foot channel could increase tonnage capacity on the river by up to 45 million tons a year (MKARNS = The

McClellan-Kerr Navigation System, located in Arkansas and

Oklahoma, at the con? uence of the White and Arkansas Riv- ers, close to the Mississippi. It was completed in 1970.).

• In Illinois, in the Upper Mississippi, $732 million is bud- geted to complete design and construction of Lock and Dam 25 and $97.1 million to start construction of Lock and Dam 22.

• Also in Illinois, at Brandon Road, $225 million starts construction of the aquatic nuisance species barrier, a ? nal location, almost a ? nal chance really, to keep Asian carp out of the Great Lakes.

• In Kentucky, $465.5 million is budgeted to “physically complete and close out” the Kentucky Lock and Dam project on the Tennessee River.

• In Pennsylvania, $857.7 million will complete all con- struction work at Montgomery Lock and Dam, on the Ohio

River, near Monaca, PA. And $77 million is to complete the

Emsworth Lock and Dam, just downstream from Pittsburgh.

Many major waterway projects have almost endless histories. Consider that at the last meeting of the Inland

Waterways Users Board (#95, October 2020) supporters of a Louisiana lock project noted that lock funding was authorized in 1956. In a way, that reads like a sad joke. ew federal money promises dramatic impacts But then consider Emsworth: its components date back to 1919. (Users Board Meeting No. 96 is scheduled to take throughout the United States’ inland water- ways system in 2022 and beyond. This report place in-person in New Orleans, on April 20. The meeting agenda was not yet available as this report is written.)

N focuses on America’s central rivers; the West-

Nevertheless, river freight transport – and related private ern rivers will be covered in a future report. These central rivers reach 11,000 miles, from Pennsylvania to Florida sector economic development – continues to thrive despite all the work that was never done. These new developments and from Texas to South Dakota.

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