Corps seeks comments on dredged material placement in Wabasha, Minn.
ST. PAUL, Minn. – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, is hosting a public meeting May 13 in Wabasha, Minnesota, to update the public about a proposed dredge unloading project and seek comments on the draft Environmental Assessment.
The meeting will be located at the Wabasha City Hall, 900 Hiawatha Dr. East, Wabasha, from 6 – 7 p.m.
Corps staff will provide a brief presentation and will be available to answer questions on the proposed project that is scheduled to begin as early as this fall.
The Corps is planning to unload up to 900,000 cubic yards of dredged material from Crats Island by December 2017. The island is a temporary placement site on the Mississippi River. The plan involves permanently placing the material at an existing site in Wabasha. The process involves hydraulically moving the dredged material from the island to the Wabasha Gravel Pit located on the east side of U.S. Highway 61.
In a separate action, the Corps is hiring a contractor to move nearly 150,000 cubic yards of dredged material from the Wabasha Gravel Pit via truck to a pit owned by Wabasha Sand & Gravel. The pit is located near the intersection of U.S. Highway 61 and Bruegger Valley Road.
The Environmental Assessment, http://www.mvp.usace.army.mil/Home/PublicNotices.aspx, is available for public review and comment until June 1. Please address all correspondence on this project to the District Commander, St. Paul District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Attention: Regional Planning and Environment Division North, 180 Fifth St. E., Ste. 700, St. Paul, MN 55101-1678. For more information, contact Aaron McFarlane, Corps biologist, at 651-290-5660.
All comments received will be made available to the public, to include the possibility of being posted on a publicly accessible website. Individuals are requested not to include personal privacy information in their comments unless they do not object to such information being made available to the public.
The nearly 650 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, employees working at more than 40 sites in five upper-Midwest states serve the American public in the areas of environmental enhancement, navigation, flood damage reduction, water and wetlands regulation, recreation sites and disaster response. Through the Corps’ Fiscal Year 2014 $100 million budget, nearly 1,600 non-Corps jobs were added to the regional economy as well as $155 million to the national economy. For more information, see http://www.mvp.usace.army.mil.
