Army Corps fights saltwater intrusion in Mississippi River once again

PLAQUEMINES PARISH, La. (WGNO) — The Army Corps of Engineers is getting ready to fight a saltwater intrusion making its way up the Mississippi River.

Dry conditions in states upstream have lowered the river level to the point where saltwater from the gulf can move in.

“It’s not been raining much up north to feed water into the Mississippi river and extended periods of no rain leads to extended periods of lower flows in the river,” said Emergency Management Department River Coordinator Sarah Stone.

The Corps is planning to construct an underwater sill across the bed of the river near Myrtle Grove in Plaquemines Parish.

“So what that’s gonna do is basically be an underwater levee. It’s going to act as a speedbump to halt the saltwater at that point from progressing beyond it,” Stone said.

It will take about two weeks to build the sill, and it will last until the flow of the river gets back to about 400,000 cubic feet per second.

“That’s when the sill begins to wash out, but usually at that point the salt water has already washed out,” Stone said.

This is the fourth year in a row for saltwater intrusion. Before then, it happened just once, about every ten years in 1988, 1999 and in 2012.

“We do have studies going on trying to figure out what’s causing it, but other than the lack of rain and the water shed, we don’t have a good answer as to why it’s happening more frequently,” Stone said.

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