Army Corps' Options Dwindle Along With Mississippi River Every
day this month, the Army Corps of Engineers is working hard to
deepen the Mississippi River's shipping channel in an effort to
keep navigation open between St. Louis and Cairo, Illinois.
Water levels are forecast to remain high enough through January
to float loaded barges, but some say the only way to keep the
river open next month will be to release water from the Missouri
River. On a recent afternoon, Maj. Gen. John Peabody zoomed
across the Mississippi River on a survey boat near the tiny
southern Illinois town of Thebes. It's the rockiest, most
shallow stretch of the river, and it's now the pinch point in
the Army Corps of Engineers' fight to keep navigation open on
the river. "What we're looking at here is pretty amazing ... it
is solid rock outcrops," he says. "It almost looks like lava
flows that stopped as they were flowing toward the shoreline;
it's a very narrow section of the river here." About thirty
yards away, a backhoe, perched on