The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers deployed as many as 25 dredgers during the past nine months to maintain the Mississippi River’s navigation channel and re-open sand-choked harbors between St. Louis and the Gulf of Mexico in response to one of the nation’s most severe droughts.
Beginning in May 2012, and continuing these days, Corps and private dredgers contracted by the Corps, worked around the clock, seven days a week, to remove sediment deposited by the 2011 flood and fight extreme low-water conditions. Since May, the dredgers have moved more than 29 million cubic yards of sediment – enough material to fill 1,333,333 dump trucks, or more than six Louisiana Superdomes, with a weight (67 billion pounds) equal to 92 Empire State Buildings.
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Press Release, January 22, 2013