The Water Level Management Task Force is sharing with the public its experience in conducting temporary water level reductions (drawdowns) on the Upper Mississippi River. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post on our wall. Use this site as a resource to educate yourselves and express your opinion on the topic. The River Resources Forum established the Water Level Managemen
t Task Force, in 1995 as a partnership for coordination and study on the Upper Mississippi River. Water level management on the UMR has been ongoing since the early 1990’s. In the upper pools (1-13), after successfully conducting three small-scale drawdowns, a large-scale drawdown of a navigation pool was planned. After lengthy selection process, Pool 8 was chosen for the first experimental drawdown, which was conducted in 2001 and repeated in 2002. Pool 5 was selected as the next location for drawdowns, and they occurred in 2005 and 2006. In 2006, a drawdown was attempted in Pool 6 but highly variable river levels that year prevented the exposure of extensive areas of bottom substrate. The Water Level Task Force is comprised of many organizations including:
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of the St. Paul District
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
U.S. Geological Survey
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
Iowa Department of Natural Resources
The Nature Conservancy
Citizen Advisory Groups
the Commercial Navigation Industry
For more infromation about the River Resources Forumn and the Water Level Management Task Force, please visit:
http://www.mvp.usace.army.mil/Missions/Navigation/RiverResourcesForum.aspx
