Posted on April 10, 2019
HICKMAN, KY — What happens on the Mississippi River can have reaching impacts, from flood damage to your dinner table. That’s why the Mississippi River Commission (MRC) exists to keep the river running smoothly. While MRC public hearings aren’t unusual, the meeting on Monday was timely after all the flooding we’ve had in 2019.
1200 feet by 300 feet.
“This small harbor, and it’s not a lot of businesses, real rural, a million tons comes out of this harbor every year,” Greg Curlin, Director of the Hickman-Fulton County Riverport Authority explained.
That amount to $100 million worth of goods, everything from agriculture to industrial products. The harbor in Hickman is home to multiple companies.
“Riverfront uses the harbor, Wepfer Marine. We’ve got Bunge Grain, and we’ve also got Cargill here in the harbor,” Curlin said.
That doesn’t include the companies that simply stop in and use the port. Shutting down isn’t an option. That’s where the MRC comes in.
“Go up and down the river and hear from the folks who live, operate and thrive along the river, and bring their concerns back to Congress,” said President Richard Kaiser, a Major General in the U.S. Army and Commanding General of the Mississippi Valley Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
That equals cash to fix problems that impact river traffic, which impacts you.
“95% of this country’s imports and exports move on the waterways,” Kaiser said. “You can’t feed the world without this river.”
Dredging at Hickman harbor, August 2012
One of the problems Hickman faces is feet of sediment buildup the river brings with it from upstream. That problem shows itself when the river is low in Hickman. It’s high water, though, like the flood of 2011, that causes it.
“But after that flood, Congress helped us and they gave us money to get after those damages and repair them,” Kaiser said. “And we made the system better.”
While this year’s flooding is comparable to 2011’s, the impact is far less.
“They knocked their hot spots and trouble spots from 2011 down 75%,” Kaiser said.
One of the ways the commission is helping Hickman is by funding dredging, or cleaning out all that sediment build up, so the river and the harbor doesn’t shut down. It’s not cheap, though, at $625,000 a year, give or take.
Hickman-Fulton County Riverport Authority Director Greg Curlin speaks with the Mississippi River Commission on Monday.
“That’s a lot,” Curlin said. “This community can’t afford to pay that every year.”
The funding to dredge comes from a close relationship with this commission and that money has been there for four years now.
“But we can’t just expect that automatically. We’ve got to keep asking,” Curlin explained. “Without the dredging, then this harbor shuts down and this community shuts down.”
That’s a problem that would have a rippling effect, from the river to your doorstep.
Curlin says after this year’s flooding, there’s probably about five to six feet of sediment buildup at the mouth of Hickman’s port. Showing up to the meeting Monday to voice that to the commission means Hickman has a voice in Washington DC.
Source: wpsdlocal6.com
