Courtesy Photo | Jillian Harms (left), Rock Island District natural resources specialist, and Lewis...... read more read more
In a first-of-its-kind study, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, and the Engineer Research and Development Center, in Vicksburg, Mississippi, are partnering to make informed decisions about river sand removed from the Mississippi River using it for ecosystem restoration projects.
Each year, the St. Paul District removes around 1 million cubic yards of dredged material, or river sand, from the Upper Mississippi River to maintain the 9-foot navigation channel and allow barge traffic to safely move up and down the river. This is enough material to fill U.S. Bank Stadium.
The 3-year research project with ERDC will be used to make better data-driven decisions about beneficially using sand for ecosystem restoration in the future, Lewis Wiechmann, St. Paul District forester, said.
The partnership with ERDC began in 2020 when St. Paul District Biologist Aaron McFarlane, completed a 6-month detail with ERDC-U. He developed relationships which turned into research studies. He received grants for smaller studies and eventually began the current study which is in year 2 of 3 and is funded by the Ecosystem Management Restoration Research Program.
The first year of research focused on site selection and on-the-ground visits to confirm site boundaries developed using geospatial data were accurate, McFarlane said. This year, the team conducted field visits to collect samples and data about the vegetation and soil conditions at each site. The third year will consist of data analysis and a final report of the results.
The research resulted in a database of over 400 sites between the St. Paul District and the St. Louis District where river sand was originally placed in the 1920s through the 1970s to develop and maintain the 9-foot channel. Over the last 40 years, USACE has created more than 130 islands through restoration efforts in this same region. The team sampled over 100 locations within these areas and in natural floodplain areas to compare the current soil conditions and what is growing there.
“This study will help us improve future restoration projects and refine what materials we use for forest restoration or island construction. Using this study, with this large dataset across sites, we can take the data, analyze it, and determine what is a good substrate and material for islands based on what goals we have in mind, like forest and native grassland,” Wiechmann said. “The soil samples will be analyzed by ERDC for microbes, bacteria and fungi and combined with forestry data to create a complete picture of the ecosystem.”
Nationally, USACE removes over 200 million cubic yards of material from navigation channels. In light of the amount of dredging and understanding that the material is a resource, USACE established a goal of using 70% of the material removed from navigation channels for beneficial use by 2030. Beneficial use is defined by USACE as “productive and positive uses of dredged material, which cover broad use categories ranging from fish and wildlife habitat development to human recreation, to industrial/commercial uses.”
“We’re managing a large river system and we’re trying to do the best we can with our dredged material management, taking care of existing sites along the river and informing management decisions to make better restoration projects,” McFarlane said. “We can help other agencies do their job and manage land on the river to make it a better overall resource for the public and to protect it for generations to come.”
| Date Taken: | 12.01.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 12.01.2025 17:32 |
| Story ID: | 552704 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 25 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Partnerships advance research in groundbreaking study, by Melanie Peterson, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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