Location/Description
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Upper Mississippi River Restoration Program includes studies and projects in the Upper Mississippi River system north of Cairo, IL. The system includes the Illinois River.
This program, authorized by Congress in 1986, emphasizes habitat rehabilitation and enhancement projects and long-term resource monitoring. The habitat project component includes dredging backwater areas and channels, constructing dikes, creating and stabilizing islands and controlling side channel flows and water levels. In the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, the projects are located along the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers from Guttenberg, Iowa (Lock and Dam 10) to Minneapolis, Minnesota, a distance of about 250 river miles. The long-term resource monitoring component includes monitoring trends and impacts with respect to selected resources, developing products for resource management decisions and maintaining river information databases.
Status
Project dedication scheduled for Harpers Slough, complete plans and specifications for Bass Ponds and award construction contract, complete planning, and initiate plans and specifications for McGregor Lake. Planning continues on Lower Pool 10 Islands and Reno Bottoms in Pool 9.
In the St. Paul District, 28 projects have now been completed: Island 42, Blackhawk Park, Lake Onalaska, Guttenberg Ponds, Pool 8 Islands (3 phases), Indian Slough, Finger Lakes, Bussey Lake, Lansing-Big Lake, Polander Lake, Pool 9 Island, Spring Lake Peninsula, Cold Springs, Peterson Lake, East Channel, Rice Lake, Small Scale Drawdown, Trempealeau Refuge, Bank Stabilization, Long Lake, Ambrough Slough, Spring Lake Islands, Pool Slough, Long Meadow Lake, Capoli Slough and Harpers Slough.
Authority
The Upper Mississippi River Restoration Program was authorized by the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 1986, amended by WRDA 1990 and WRDA 1992. Section 509, WRDA 1999, reauthorized and amended the program to extend it without a termination date and required a report to Congress every six years. To implement the program, partnerships have been formed among the Corps; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; U.S. Geological Survey; and the states of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri and Illinois.
Fiscal
The authorized program funding is $33.17 million annually. The president’s fiscal year 2019 budget is $33.17 million. A total of $630 million has been appropriated through fiscal year 2019.