After 50 years of concerns and temporary fixes around three rivers in the Arkansas Delta, state and federal officials signed a $3 million cost-sharing agreement Thursday to begin a study on finding a permanent solution to ensure the waterways stay navigable.
The feasibility study will focus on the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System near the convergence of the Arkansas, White and Mississippi rivers, which happens near the convergence of Arkansas, Phillips and Desha counties.
The problem: A full breach between the Arkansas and White rivers has a 7 percent to 10 percent chance of happening each year, according to previous studies cited by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Little Rock District.
Such a breach could result in the rivers overflowing into each other or the Mississippi River shifting. A full breach could close the area to navigation for 100 days, resulting in $300 million in economic costs, including businesses opting for more expensive alternative means of shipping materials and products, such as rail and tractor-trailer.
The rivers have overflowed before, and some roads are flooded right now. But the damage is greater when there is a larger differential between the Arkansas and White river levels.
"We want to protect navigation in Arkansas," Arkansas Waterways Commission Executive Director Gene Higginbotham said. The commission is serving as the state sponsor for the Army Corps of Engineers project.
Through Gov. Asa Hutchinson's general improvement funds, the state will contribute $1.5 million to the three-year study. The other $1.5 million will be provided by the federal government.
While navigation is the chief concern for the study, recreational and environmental activity also is affected by the overflow of the rivers, said Patricia Anslow, chief of the planning and environmental division with the Corps in Little Rock. The area includes the Trusten Holder State Wildlife Management Area, which would face pollution in a breach.
"It's very remote, very much a unique ecosystem," Anslow said. After past overflows, damage is visible once the water recedes, she said.
The Corps first recognized the potential problems in the 1960s, Anslow said, and built several structures and made repairs in the next decades.
"But now we've realized those have really been Band-Aids," Anslow said.
The agency has been trying to do a feasibility study for years and now can as part of 10 Corps studies approved for this year nationwide.
The study will look at potential solutions -- such as a structure for diverting water or raising existing structures to block overflow -- and compare costs and benefits of them. Based on previous estimates, Anslow said, the costs of some of the ideas could be $60 million to $240 million.
The study will conclude within three years, and recommendations afterward will go to Congress for approval. New rules have sped up the process into a nine-year project of study, planning and building.
Higginbotham said the project has been his agency's top priority.
"This is an important first step," he said of Thursday's signing.
Metro on 07/11/2015