May 26, 2021 By Waterways Journal
After completing the design phase three years earlier than planned, the Kansas City Engineer District has awarded the fourth and final construction contract to improve the Kansas City Levees System to the Lane Construction Company of Cheshire, Conn. The $257.7 million construction contract, including $38.8 million of future options, will complete 17 miles of levee and floodwall improvements to the Argentine, Armourdale and Central Industrial District Levee Units along the Kansas River in Kansas City, Kansas and Missouri.
The project requires more than 1 million cubic yards of earthwork, nearly 25,000 feet of new concrete floodwall, 120 new relief wells, replacement of 12 high-traffic railroad closure structures, improvements to nearly 40 drainage structures and modifications to more than 175 existing utilities. Construction is anticipated to begin this summer and be complete in spring
March 1, 2021 By David Murray
The Kansas City Engineer District is taking multiple actions to repair and mitigate damage done to river structures on the Missouri River from high water over the last several years, including major flooding in 2019.
Crews have been repairing damaged structures all winter, the district said, but work directly on the river has slowed recently due to dangerous floating ice. Even though river repairs have slowed, teams across the Kansas City District continue planning, engineering and diagnostic work in preparation for major repair work that will start this spring.
Physical buoys are pulled from the Missouri River at the end of the navigation season, usually in December, and are added again when the navigation season begins, according to river surveys and flow support levels, said Eric Kvistad, the aids to navigation officer at Sector Upper Mississippi River.
December 15, 2020 By David Murray
The last bargeload of the season was unloaded at the Port of St. Joseph, Mo., over the weekend of November 21. Bill Becker, CEO of Transport 360, which has revitalized the port since taking it over, told a local news source the facility has lost about 15 bargeloads during the past year due to shoaling and light-loading. He expects the next barge at the port in mid-January.
The Corps of Engineers began reducing water flow from Gavins Point Dam in late November; by December 9 it had reached its winter level of between 17,000 and 18,000 cubic feet per second (cfs.). Gavins Point Dam winter levels normally range from 12,000 to 17,000 cfs. Last year at this time, the December reduction brought flows to 27,000 cfs. after a year of record rainfall and floods. Runoff in the upper Missouri River Basin above Sioux City, Iowa, was 1.2 million acre-feet during November, or 116 percent of average