Tagged: ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS

  Kentucky Senators continue to condemn the Army Corps of Engineers decision to restrict access to the tail-waters of Barkley Dam.

Mississippi River shippers say they're returning to handling full loads because the drought-ravaged waterway has benefited from winter storms and aggressive rock-clearing.

The Army Corps of Engineers and the Coast Guard say the crisis is over with water levels rising and rocks cleared to deepen the channel. The corps recently removed riverbed rocks from a treacherous stretch south of St. Louis, and it says recent snow and rain have helped raise the Mississippi. 

U.S. Representative Ed Whitfield has introduced a bill to keep the Army Corps of Engineers from blocking fishing near dams on the Cumberland River, a plan that’s drawn outrage from anglers in Kentucky and Tennessee.

Whitfield met earlier with corps officials and said he was prepared to file legislation if necessary.  Whitfield says his Freedom to Fish Act allows continued boating access to river tailwaters for sportsmen and recreational fishermen.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says the near-historic Mississippi River flood of 2011 caused $2.8 billion in damage and tested the system of levees, reservoirs and floodways like no other flood before it.

The Army Corps released a report Monday saying the Mississippi River and Tributaries system was operated as it was designed to work and was mostly successful in fighting the flood along of the nation's most important inland waterway.

U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee is promising to delay the Army Corps of Engineers from restricting access near Cumberland River dams and says he might even restrict their funds. Alexander is the senior Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Energy and Water, which has jurisdiction over the Corps.