The US Army Corps of Engineers is planning to barge 36 million gallons of freshwater daily into the lower Mississippi River near New Orleans as saltwater intrusion from the Gulf of Mexico continues to threaten drinking water supply, officials said Friday.
The move comes as water levels are plummeting for the second consecutive year after this summer’s blistering heat and low rainfall triggered extreme drought over parts of the central US.
As water levels drop, the threat of saltwater intrusion grows in Louisiana as ocean water pushes north into drinking water systems, unimpeded by the Mississippi’s normally mighty flow rate.
The Mississippi River is forecast to reach “historic lows over the next several weeks,” Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said during a Friday news conference.
To help mitigate intrusion, the state and the Army Corps of Engineers are working to add 25 feet of height to a 1,500-foot-wide underwater levee in the Mississippi River, which was constructed in July to slow the saltwater’s progression, Army Col. Cullen Jones said.
The corps also plans to barge millions of gallons of water daily to local water treatment facilities, Jones said during the news conference.
The corps announced the plan to build the levee last year. It involved dredging sediment from the bottom of the river and pile it up to create what’s known as a sill, which acts as a dam for the denser saltwater in the lower levels of the river.
Typically, enough rainfall upstream helps ease drought conditions and keeps the saltwater at bay. However, during the news conference Friday, the governor said officials “don’t believe that there is sufficient precipitation in the near term anywhere along the Mississippi River to materially change the conditions for the better.”
“Unfortunately, we just haven’t had the relief from the dry conditions that we need and so that inclusion is worsening,” Edwards said.
The move comes as water levels are plummeting for the second consecutive year after this summer’s blistering heat and low rainfall triggered extreme drought over parts of the central US.
As water levels drop, the threat of saltwater intrusion grows in Louisiana as ocean water pushes north into drinking water systems, unimpeded by the Mississippi’s normally mighty flow rate.
The Mississippi River is forecast to reach “historic lows over the next several weeks,” Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said during a Friday news conference.
To help mitigate intrusion, the state and the Army Corps of Engineers are working to add 25 feet of height to a 1,500-foot-wide underwater levee in the Mississippi River, which was constructed in July to slow the saltwater’s progression, Army Col. Cullen Jones said.
The corps also plans to barge millions of gallons of water daily to local water treatment facilities, Jones said during the news conference.
The corps announced the plan to build the levee last year. It involved dredging sediment from the bottom of the river and pile it up to create what’s known as a sill, which acts as a dam for the denser saltwater in the lower levels of the river.
Typically, enough rainfall upstream helps ease drought conditions and keeps the saltwater at bay. However, during the news conference Friday, the governor said officials “don’t believe that there is sufficient precipitation in the near term anywhere along the Mississippi River to materially change the conditions for the better.”
“Unfortunately, we just haven’t had the relief from the dry conditions that we need and so that inclusion is worsening,” Edwards said.