For the first time in Rock Island District history, the Operations Division Channel Maintenance program and the Upper Mississippi River Restoration (UMRR) program collaborated in an effort to beneficially use dredge material on the UMRR Steamboat Island Habitat Rehabilitation and Enhancement Project (HREP).
According to USACE’s Rock Islands District, this partnership resulted in cost and time savings for both programs due the reduction in distance that material needed to be moved and strengthened the relationship between these USACE programs.
Also, it gave the opportunity for UMRR sponsors from other agencies to work with a different USACE program.
The Upper Mississippi River Restoration Program, authorized by the Water Resources Development Act of 1986, was the first environmental restoration and monitoring program undertaken on a large river system in the United States.
Since its creation, it has come to be recognized as the single most important effort committed to ensuring the viability and vitality of the Upper Mississippi River System’s (UMRS) diverse and significant fish and wildlife resources since establishment of the National Wildlife Refuges on that system in the 1920s.