Miss. River Water Level Questions

Lucky for you its falling pretty good right now.

The corps has flow rate levels that trigger openings of the lock system in stages. Those other issues you mentioned earlier don’t factor into it on the surface (but are discussed at a higher leVel than you or I). With all that being said I was in Concordia this past week and I can tell you the length of time that the river has stayed well above flood stage for the past 4-5 years is really taking a toll on the levee system. There are levee washouts in numerous places including one near the Morganza spillway. Thankfully the levee is really wide in that location. I know they are really concerned about uplift on the land side of the levees as well. The Corps is going to have its work cut out for it when the water goes down to get all the repairs in before next years high water.

inasmuch as I live about three miles from the River, I've been concerned about this for a while. I don't see the ACOE doing a whole bunch of work around us but I know I've seen some good boils in years past. I sure hope they know what they are doing.

The system is designed to protect the large cities. They don’t open anything unless there’s a downriver threat to a large city. As soon as the threat passes, due to water levels decreasing, they close up the structure.

The entire System Is one of the best return on investments the government has ever designed. It’s certainly been tested in recent years, but it’ still works even after all these years.

I don’t think they are doing it on purpose they have guidelines to follow. I was told the river is so silted in that the flow rate would never be reached to trigger the opening of some of the spillways. The river is staying high due to it not being dredged like it use to be. I was told that in 2008 Obama cut funding for dredging the river. They said there use to be three dredge boats in the river in New Orleans and now there’s just one, not sure if that is true. They are supposed to start a dredging project from the mouth to Baton Rouge. Here’s a few links about it. Dredging Today and NOLA.com

Supposedly a major part of of the restriction is right downstream of Morganza.

2020, the year of Covid, Government boot to the throat, negative oil and when the MS river said frick yalls levees.


Seriously though it look like we made it through this spring without much flooding compared to the previous couple.

Would take every dredge in the country working round the clock to have an impact if any on overall river bed level.... it was a good run for the Corp and man made structures but it is only a matter of when not if the river does it’s thing. May not be our lifetime but who knows.

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Any logical reasoning to keep it this high?

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Uh, because the river has flooded nearly every year for thousands of years and it's just part of the water cycle.