U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Pool 10 projects focus of informational meeting

By Steve Van Kooten

At a public information meeting held by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — St. Paul District (Corps), John Henderson, a civil engineer and project manager, highlighted several ongoing and potential projects for Pool 10 of the Mississippi River, which serves as the dividing line between northeast Iowa and southwest Wisconsin.

“We’ve got quite a bit of considerable-sized projects ready to go,” said Henderson. “We’re just waiting for the funding to come in.”

The meeting took place at the Prairie du Chien Memorial Library on May 13 at 4 p.m.

Pool 10 consists of approximately 32 miles of river habitat, stretching from Lock and Dam 9 in Lynxville to Dam 10 in Guttenberg.

Ongoing projects

G&G Steel, a company based in Georgia, is fabricating new miter gates for Lock and Dam 9 in 2027.

The current gates are approximately 50 years old.

The Corps will install new anchorages to support the much heavier gates.

Lock 9 is also awaiting a new end cell, which is still in the design phase. The estimated cost for the project is between $10 and $15 million.

The 12 locks and dams are one part of the Corps’ responsibilities on the Mississippi. The St. Paul District alone manages 243 miles of the river, including 14 harbors and 40 miles of other, smaller rivers. It also implements restoration projects on river habitats.

For the past five years, the Corps has worked to restore McGregor Lake and the surrounding area in between Marquette, and Prairie du Chien.

Henderson said that the $24 million project will finish this summer — five years after work began.

“We’re going to get a little bit of grading done in the next few months, and we should be wrapping this project up and getting that area planted with trees here soon,” said Henderson. “All of these islands along the interior of the lake and all of the stone protection on the side are complete. We’re wrapping up the little islands.”

Henderson added that the overwintering areas have shown positive results.

“I know that they did some fish surveys, and they were able to pick up some of the targeted species that we were aiming for. Usually, it’s a two- to three-year process for the fish to inhabit these areas that we dredged,” he said.

Sny Magill

Further south, Henderson said a $5 to $10 million restoration project on the Sny Magill is waiting for funding.

The area is part of the Effigy Mounds National Monument and contains more than 1,000 Native American burial and ceremonial mounds that are deemed to be of national significance.

“We are looking to stabilize that shoreline in the slough where we’re seeing some erosion near the mounds,” said Henderson. “We’re working through that right now in design.”

According to the Corps’ project overview, high-water events caused bank failure in the area, damaging several mounds. Previous attempts to stabilize the banks by the National Park Service have met with limited success.

“In developing the plans and specs for this, we’ve been told that we can’t touch those burial mounds. We can’t even touch the shore of where they might have been — maybe they’ve eroded over time,” said Henderson. 

The project overview on the Corps website says that six mounds are in immediate threat due to high water from 2018 to 2021.

The project will construct an offshore rock mound and plant grass to help stabilize the area. 

“That is the whole goal of the project: to help secure that shoreline to protect those burial mounds so we don’t see continuing deterioration,” said Henderson.

He said the goal is to get the project started over the next “few years.”

Lower Pool 10

The Corps touched on two projects near Guttenberg, including a proposed mooring cell north of Lock and Dam 10 and a restoration project.

The mooring cell is still in the design phase, with an estimated cost between $5 and $10 million.

According to the Corps website, the purpose of the project is to provide a place for towboats to tie off while waiting to pass through the lock.

“We’re evaluating it currently, but no decisions have been made on the future of the project,” said Henderson.

A public meeting in Guttenberg generated comments in favor of and in opposition to the project from residents.

Area residents have raised concerns that the project will disrupt the area’s scenic view and tourism.

Henderson, who noted that he is not the project’s manager, said, “I know we did receive a bunch of public comments — some for and some against — from all across the board, the DNR, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the public and the navigation industry.”

The restoration project on Lower Pool 10 is one of the largest ever undertaken by the Corps of Engineers, according to Henderson.

The project is through the Upper Mississippi River Restoration (UMRR) program, which focuses on projects that can restore and strengthen natural habitats along the river.

The first contract (worth $7.5 million) was awarded to the Legacy Corporation this past September.

Henderson estimated the entire project costs around $40 million, with the first phase accounting for $11 million.

“The goal of that is really to restore, secure and stabilize a lot of the shorelines and banks we’ve seen erode over the decades that the locks have been there,” he said. “It’s going to take us a few years.”

Henderson said the project will restore nearly three miles of islands that have degraded. The contractor will use granular material to form the base of the islands and top them with fine sediment from dredging to grow vegetation.

“We’ve raised the pool level to facilitate that nine-foot navigation channel, so once that was in there, we did see a lot of that vegetation die off from being submerged. Now we’ve started to see a lot of erosion over the years from wind, barge traffic and all sorts of different things,” he said. “This is a good opportunity to help build those up and secure a lot of those islands in place with rock; they should be there for at least 50 years. That’s the goal.”

Stage one is supposed to start next month, provided that nature cooperates.

“We have some eagles hanging out in some of their nests right now, so once they’ve fled, we’ll be able to get started,” said Henderson.

Construction is supposed to take place in the North and South Ferry Sloughs as well as McMillan Island. Stage one will primarily focus on islands in the southern portion of the lower pool.

Henderson estimated that dredging will take place in Bussey Lake intermittently over the next three to five years for “a week or two at a time” as needed.

Originally, a groundbreaking ceremony for the project was scheduled for April 22; however, the Corps cancelled that event on April 10 and announced the informational meeting in Prairie du Chien.

Phase 2 of the project is ready for solicitation, with a contract amount between $15 and $20 million, but the nebulous state of government funding has put the later stages of the Pool 10 rehabilitation in a holding pattern.

“The other two stages are designed and ready to go, but the UMRR did not receive the funding that it was expecting, so we have these projects on hold until we receive that funding. The minute that we have funding, we’re ready to go,” said Henderson. “Depending on where our funding is will determine if we go after stages 2 and 3.”

For more information on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and related projects, contact can be made through their website at mvp.usasce.army.mil/aspx, by calling 651-290-5755 for programs and project management, or by calling 651-290-5807.