USACE’sArkansas River Deepening to Relieve Congestion On Roads, Rails

USACE from page 8

Howe said transportation down the navigation system also is less costly than other methods.

“Folks that are [transporting] their agriculture can move more of it cheaper,” he explained to the Democrat-Gazette, “and it puts more money in their pockets.” Those savings, Howe noted, may be passed down to the consumer.

Moving more cargo using the navigation system, as opposed to trucks and trains, would also improve air quality, according to a USACE news release, and barges produce “far less” emissions on a ton-per-mile basis than trucks and trains.

Currently, about 10 million tons of cargo are moved along the waterway every year, according to the Corps. It estimates that tonnage to be “the equivalent of 437,287 semi-trucks, or 109,322 railcars.”

Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Sparks Newest Efforts

Securing adequate funding has been a significant obstruction to the project since Congress first approved the 12-ft. navigation channel in 2003. By 2005, the USACE was poised to go ahead with the project, according to earlier Democrat-Gazette reporting.

At the time, environmental groups worried that material dredged to deepen the shipping lane would fill in the river’s meandering curves and backwaters, spoiling Arkansas’ treasured bass-casting spots. Budget observers believed that the financially strapped federal agency could better spend its money shoring up levees to protect people from flooding, rather than on a commercial navigation project.

But in 2012, a coalition of Fort Smith and Northwest Arkansas area business, civic, and elected leaders banded together to make another push for the project. A University of Arkansas at Little Rock economist also estimated the effort would cost more than $68 million.

Howe said the Corps had been able to make some modifications to the system over the years, though he described the progress as “limping along, mostly due to intermittent appropriations from Congress.”

Then, last November, the White House announced the USACE had awarded over $200 million “to maintain and improve” the McClellan-Kerr system through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. That funding sparked the current push to carry out the river deepening project, Howe told the Democrat-Gazette.

In February, the Corps’ Little Rock District received an added $4.1 million in the Fiscal Year 23 Work Plan, part of which could go toward deepening the channel. Of that, $3.3 million in operation and maintenance funds were to improve navigation along the river. 