Mississippi River Commission warns of flood-control backlog due to flatlining budget. Town mayors lobby for increased funding amid rising flood risks, as USACE faces challenges in completing crucial projects. Climate change exacerbates extreme weather patterns, threatening the region's levee systems. USDA grant funding for flood-wall improvements in towns like Helena faces uncertainty amidst potential budget cuts.
Shutterstock photo
Ariel photo of a Mississippi River flood in Arkansas in 2016.
An official with the federal Mississippi River Commission (MRC) is warning of a potential backlog for flood–control work as its budget flatlines.
The concerns come as portions of the lower river basin face increased flood risk and mayors in towns and cities along the Mississippi are lobbying Congress for more funding for flood control.
MRC members joined the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) recently as the latter agency held a high-water inspection trip — one of its two annual public-meeting tours — aboard the official towboat Mississippi as it made its way south, stopping in four river towns.
One of those visits was on April 1, 2025, to Helena-West Helena, Ark., a town of approximately 10,000 people along the west shore of the river.
Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent news network, noted that the MRC's meeting serves two purposes: to gather input from residents on USACE projects and to inspect the work. Included among them is a $20 million floodwall-repair project in Helena-West Helena that protects approximately $1.1 billion in property but is currently deadlocked due to a land dispute.
"There's … more that needs to be done and needs to be done better in some cases," said Lt. Col. Collin R. Jones, deputy commander of the USACE's Memphis district.
The Mississippi Rivers and Tributaries Project was originally authorized in 1928 following the devastating Great Flood of 1927. Under it, the USACE built a comprehensive system of levees, flood walls and channel improvements to protect communities along the lower Mississippi River. The federal agency estimates that it has protected about $1 trillion in flood damage since 1928.
But the USACE's budget for the project has remained flat over the past few years after a significant funding boost in fiscal year 2022. At that time, it was appropriated approximately $2 billion, including $808 million from former-President Biden's bipartisan infrastructure law.
During the next two years, the project's budget saw a decrease as the infrastructure funding lapsed. In FY 2023 it was allocated $385.5 million, followed in 2024 by $368 million in appropriations.
The USACE's budget for FY 2025 was proposed in March and is still being coordinated with the Trump administration. For this fiscal year, the Mississippi Rivers and Tributaries Project has been operating from a $50 million supplemental-funding package.
MRC Commissioner James Reeder of Memphis said the $800 million funding allocation for FY 2022 is what is needed to keep the project running at a good rate. He warned that the loss in funding during the past few fiscal years could cause a backlog moving forward.
Arkansas officials in attendance at the USACE and MRC meeting in Helena-West Helena said they wanted increased funding for projects across the state — and quickly.
"There is a lot of money sitting in the coffers and I ask that you responsibly put it on the ground and finish the project," said Rob Rash, CEO of the St. Francis Levee District on the west side of Memphis. "We've never been without [flood control] in my generation and I sure don't want to be without it."
The USACE's Memphis District has 27 active Mississippi River Levee projects. Nine of those are in the design stage, while 18 are under construction. More than 100 other levee-improvement projects are planned for the area.
From December through May, the Mississippi River generally rises as snowmelt from the Upper Midwest makes its way south. But the river has been experiencing extreme weather changes of late — swinging between drought and floods — that scientists have attributed to climate change.
Average annual rainfall has increased by 2-8 in. during the past 50 years across the basin. As rainfall has increased, its pattern has changed, with more precipitation coming in the winter and spring months and less in the summer. Changes in rainfall patterns can make land along the river more vulnerable to erosion.
Arkansans are asking the USACE for more support, not less. West Hornor, a member of the Helena Improvement District, wants nearly $1.1 million for a flood-wall improvement project in downtown Helena to protect it from the Mississippi's floodwaters.
"Our biggest economic generator is that river," he said. "The hazard of [a] flood is certainly there and the risk of a breach in that wall is certainly there."
The MRC recommended that the city pursue a federal U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) grant. But John Edwards, a former official in President Bill Clinton's administration and the general counsel of the Helena Harbor, said that that is not a sure solution, either.
"[The USDA] for a number of years now has had cuts in what it's able to do with its funding budget," he said.
The federal agricultural agency's Rural Development office provided at least $445 million to Arkansas alone in 2024 and annually provides billions to the country's rural communities through assistance and grant programs.
Now, however, the USDA is seeing deeper and more broad-ranging cuts under the Trump administration and its Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). All but three of the USDA's rural-housing programs received funding cuts in the Congressional spending bill passed in March 2025.
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