Posted on October 2, 2024
ST. PAUL, Minn. — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, and the city of Wabasha, Minnesota, are again working together to manage river sand dredged from the Mississippi River.
The trucking operations began this week and should be complete in December. The city anticipates moving around 2,000 cubic yards of sand a day, Monday – Friday, during daylight hours via U.S. Highway 61 and city streets. A similar trucking operation occurred earlier this year and supported the movement of around 130,000 cubic yards of sand.
The city said they plan to use Kohner Materials, from Wabasha, to move sand from the Wabasha Gravel Pit, a Corps of Engineers placement site near Wabasha, to a gravel pit about a mile away and on the west side of the highway. The city is doing the work under an agreement with the Corps of Engineers to manage the sand within the community.
The agreement is known as a Section 217(d) agreement, under the Water Resources Development Act of 1996, and signed by Wabasha Mayor Emily Durand and Col. Eric Swenson, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, commander, in July 2023. The partnership supports river sand management within the Wabasha community.
The trucking operations help the Corps of Engineers ensure there is available placement sites for dredged river sand. The Corps removes around 250,000 cubic yards of sand from the Mississippi River near Wabasha every year. Having storage sites for this material is a critical component to maintaining the Mississippi River navigation channel and supports the movement of commerce within the Upper Midwest. A majority of the products shipped on the river include corn, soybeans, fertilizer and salt, all of which support agricultural communities along the river.
