$250M USACE Project Deepens Mississippi from Baton Rouge to Gulf of Mexico

Thu October 13, 2022 - Southeast Edition #21
Lori Tobias – CEG Correspondent

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has completed the first part of a project to deepen the Mississippi River from Baton Rouge to the Gulf of Mexico, opening the way for larger vessels from the widened Panama Canal to travel as far north as Baton Rouge. (USACE photo)

The $250 million project will provide a draft of 50 ft. over 256 mi. of the Mississippi. The river is naturally deep but shoals up in areas. The dredging is expected to be necessary only over about 70 mi.
(USACE photo)

The Corps maintains the deep draft channel by continuously dredging it using hopper dredges. (USACE photo)

One of the challenges in getting the pipeline relocations completed is to do so without blocking river traffic, commerce that tallies billions of dollars daily.
(USACE photo)

"We've reached it from New Orleans to the Gulf," said Ricky Boyett, chief of Corps public affairs in New Orleans. "We still have to dredge Baton Rouge and New Orleans — that's our focal area now."

When completed, the $250 million project will provide a draft of 50 ft. over 256 mi. of the Mississippi. The river is naturally deep but shoals up in areas. The dredging is expected to be necessary only over about 70 mi., Boyett said.

"The dredging allows the larger ships to bring more cargo in. Four of the top ports — Baton Rouge, Southern Louisiana, New Orleans and Plaquemines Parrish — rank in the Top 15 ports in the country. The deepening keeps them competitive with other ports and maintains it for Panamax and post Panamax ships. Those ships can come in now, but they can't come in with a full load. The project allows more cargo per trip."

The Corps maintains the deep draft channel by continuously dredging it using hopper dredges. It is the single biggest Corps project, Boyett said. The deepening dredge work for the project comes with the additional challenge of ensuring they don't make contact with utilities beneath the river.

"We have to dredge it and make sure alignment is most efficient and then we also have to work with the state to get pipeline and utilities at a safe depth or relocated," Boyett said. "The Corps is handing the dredging. The state has the lead for pipeline and utilities relocation."

The plan originally identified 14 pipelines to be relocated by late 2023. Now, there are fewer pipelines to move, but work may not be complete until at least 2025, said Chris Collins, director of waterways for the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development. Two additional pipelines were discovered between mile marker 10 and 11 above Head of Passes (AHP), an area not usually dredged because of currents. Then, a reevaluation of the plans called into question the need for the planned relocating of all the pipelines.

"Six months ago, we started a conversation about the pipelines in the Baton Rouge, which includes seven out of original 14," Collins said. "There are seven in Baton Rouge between old the Mississippi bridge and new Mississippi bridge, starting at mile post 232. 7. The plan was to move all of those and deepen to mile marker 233. The ships can't go past the old bridge because of the height. That was built to prevent ships going up Mississippi and they had to stop at Baton Rouge. We determined there are no deep draft docks above mile marker 232.4, so why try to remove them at that steep cost? Now, we're down to nine — two of which have been abandoned. That's just one of those things, you have this plan and then you go, ‘hey let's look at this again'."

One of the challenges in getting the relocations completed is to do so without blocking river traffic, commerce that tallies billions of dollars daily. To shut traffic down even 12 hours would be a "huge deal," Collins said. Until the pipelines can be moved, the dredge will go around them. When the work moves forward, crews will replace each existing pipeline with a new, deeper one, then switch the utility to it, then disconnect and cut out the old pipeline.

"They can't pull it out through the levees, so they have to cut and cap so they don't disturb the levee," Collins said. "It's a lot more involved than you'd think and lot more expensive than people realize."

Boyett estimated that about $45 million of the $250 million budget is for pipeline removal.

"We figured about $3 million per pipeline, but it is coming out more like $5 million," he said. "What a budget buster. Some thought we might not even get to finish the project because of those numbers. But now that we only have to do the seven — the Corps doesn't have to pay to remove two that were abandoned — we're kind of getting back on budget."

In addition to opening up the river to larger ships, the project is also benefitting wildlife and the environment. The Corps was able to use the dredged sediment from the first phase of the project to build 1,600 acres of critical marsh habitat at the mouth of the river, including wetlands in the federally owned Delta National Wildlife Refuge and the state-owned Pass-a-Loutre Wildlife Management Area.

Equipment for the relocating natural gas and propylene utilities includes: