Illinois Lt. Governor Shelia Simon and US Senator Dick Durbin met Monday with the US Army Corps of Engineers.
The meeting in East Alton, IL was an opportunity for local business leaders to talk with Durbin and the Corps of Engineers about their response to low water levels on the Mississippi River.
Durbin called the drought situation “a historic challenge”, saying that addition measures may have to be taken to keep commerce functioning. The senator also cautioned that the ballooning cost of natural disasters brought on by climate change should be part of the current budget talks: "The cost of these disasters that we are facing, these extreme weather disasters, goes way beyond what we had anticipated. The average expenditure by the federal government for disasters each year is 11 billion dollars, average.”
In addition to blasting rock pinnacles along the Mississippi near Jackson and Alexander Counties, the Corps of Engineers is also releasing water from Carlyle Lake into the Kaskaskia River to augment flow along a key stretch of the Mississippi.
Simon chairs the Illinois Mississippi River Coordinating Council. She has urged the US Army Corps of Engineers to take the steps necessary to prevent the shut down of barge traffic on the Mississippi. The American Waterways Operators Association says closing the Mississippi to barge traffic would jeopardize $7-Billion in products during December and January.
