Posted on August 18, 2025
Army Corps of Engineers says they will return next week
QUINCY – Crews dredging the Mississippi River in Quincy were pulled off their work on August 13th.
“The Dredge that was working in the Quincy Boat Harbor was called away as it was needed for emergency dredging operations on the Red River in Vicksburg, MS,” Corporate Communications Chief Allen Marshall told Muddy River News. “The Rock Island District Survey crew is scheduled to be at the Quincy Harbor next week to make determinations related to the total amount of cubic yards that have been dredged.”
The goal is to have the water level at six feet at pool stage.
The targeted area, or cut, is about 2,000 feet long along the land side of Quincy Bay to the bridge people use to get over to Quinsippi Island.
As MRN reported on July 26, crews were ahead of schedule and halfway through removing a targeted 55,000 cubic yards of sediment and transferring it to two retention ponds.
“Once the harbor survey is complete, the Rock Island District will evaluate remaining available funds and determine if additional options to complete additional dredging are possible,”Marshall noted in his email to MRN Friday.
Six small boat harbors in the Mississippi Valley Region received funds for dredging, using $8.3 million from the Fiscal Year Energy and Water Appropriation Bill, which was signed into law by President Biden on March 9, 2024. That bill provides $8.68 billion in regular funding for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Civil Works Program.
Longtime Boathouse owner John Mungo said he thinks boating in the area has been down this summer, but it’s not the dredging keeping folks away.
“The river’s high,” he said, “the water’s covering most of the sandbars. There’s no place to hang out.”
As to whether the dredging that has happened has helped the water flow. Mango said it was too soon to tell.
“We really won’t know until the water level is lower.”
The stage at Quincy, was at 13.93 feet at 6:00 Friday morning. The tail stage at Lock and Dam 21 (also near Quincy) was at 13.15 feet at 6:00 Friday morning when MRN checked with John Brammeir of the website RiverGages.com, through the Corps of Engineers.
“Our forecast is for both locations to gradually fall over the weekend. Quincy is forecasted for about 13.5 feet by Monday, and L&D 21 tail stage is forecasted for about 12.6 feet by Monday,” Brammeier elaborated. “The outflow at Lake Red Rock (Iowa’s largest lake) Reservoir is forecast to be steady through the weekend.
The outflow at Coralville (lake between Iowa City and Cedar Rapids, Iowa) Reservoir is expected to decline about 1000 cfs (cubic feet per second) per day starting on Saturday, but the effect of those cuts will not reach Quincy for at least 5 days, and will be very small.”
Brammeier said as an example, the cuts expected at Coralville are going to be around 1000 cubic feet per second each day.
“This (Friday) morning at L&D 21, the flow through the open river was about 159,000 cubic feet per second, which is much, much greater than the forecasted cuts 5 days upstream.
Instead, most of the decline in flow will be a result of cuts in the mainstem (the primary or largest part of a channel) Mississippi River upstream of Quincy. We are just passing water from the rainfall over Dubuque and Southern Wisconsin that fell last weekend. It is finally moving through Quincy these last couple days.”
All quiet on the riverfront Friday-MRN photos by Michele McCormack
