The St. Paul District Pool 2 wing dam modification project, in the Mississippi River, downstream of St. Paul, Minnesota, is the first ecosystem restoration contract in the nation awarded under the Navigation and Ecosystem Sustainability Program, or NESP.
NESP is a long-term program of navigation improvements and ecosystem restoration for the Upper Mississippi River System. The primary goals of the program are to increase the capacity and improve the reliability of the inland navigation system while restoring, protecting and enhancing the environment.
“It’s exciting to work with the Rock Island and St. Louis districts to determine how this program will operate for the next 15 years,” said Kimberly Warshaw, project manager. “If we’re able to execute NESP, it will lead to hundreds of millions of dollars in ecosystem restoration projects in the three districts, adding environmental benefits to the Upper Midwest.”
The $324,000 Pool 2 contract was awarded to Togiak Management Services of Anchorage, Alaska on Nov. 29, 2022. Construction is expected to start in spring/summer with construction estimated for completion in September.
The Pool 2 wing dam modification project area is in the middle and lower half of Pool 2 of the Upper Mississippi River south of St. Paul and spans Dakota, Ramsey and Washington counties in Minnesota. A wing dam is a rock structure that diverts the water to the center of the river channel. The contractor will notch out rock from 17 wing dams to encourage depth and flow diversity of river habitat for fish.
According to Trevor Cyphers, biologist, this is a transition area with a variety of habitat types, resulting in high fish diversity. These species could include channel catfish, smallmouth bass, walleye, bluegill, freshwater drum, or paddlefish.
“This project has been in development for two years, and NESP has provided the financial capability and opportunity to complete the project,” Warshaw said. “Under NESP, we will continue to execute projects that support navigation infrastructure while also providing funding for ecosystem restoration projects.”
There are two more NESP environmental projects that could start construction as soon as 2025, she continued: the Pool 3 Northern Sturgeon Lake project and the Pool 4 Wacouta Bay project. Both these projects will also include collaboration with engaged partners, Prairie Island Indian Community and Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
for Sturgeon Lake and the Wisconsin and Minnesota departments of natural resources for Wacouta Bay.
NESP background
Transportation, boating, fishing and a myriad of other business and recreational uses of the Upper Mississippi River and Illinois Waterways provide approximately $1 billion annually in net benefits to the nation’s economy. Equally important is the high environmental value these rivers provide the nation. Balancing these combined, and sometimes conflicting, factors make managing the river system challenging, with many individuals and organizations championing great and varying interests.
In 1986, the Upper Mississippi River System was declared by Congress as a “nationally significant ecosystem and a nationally significant commercial navigation system.” This led to a navigation study in 1990 that looked at the constraints of the navigation system and the effect of increasing locks to allow bigger locks and improve efficiencies in the navigation system, according to Terry Birkenstock, chief of regional planning and environment division north.
In 1993, The Upper Mississippi River - Illinois Waterway System Navigation Feasibility Study was initiated to further study waterway improvements.
“During these studies there was controversy from the environmental community,” Birkenstock said. “They wanted equal expenditure on ecosystem and navigation, so they agreed to collaborate and attend the public meetings.”
Coupled with recommendations from the National Research Council and based on input from a federal agency task force, the study was restructured in 2001 with the goal of an environmentally sustainable navigation system that ensured efficient transportation for the future. The report was finalized and signed in 2004.
In 2007, Congress authorized NESP in the Water Resources Development Act. The first dual-purpose program of its kind to enhance and improve the Upper Mississippi River System.
“After that, it was on the back burner,” Birkenstock said. “Industry and other organizations have been lobbying Congress for years to fund construction and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law finally made it happen. The appropriations from the law, signed in January 2022, will propel projects to modernize navigation on the Upper Mississippi River System and restore the environment.
For more information, see: https://www.mvr.usace.army.mil/Missions/Navigation/NESP/
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This story originally appeared in the Winter 2023 issue of Crosscurrents on Pages 6-7
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