temporarily lower Mississippi River elevation near St. Anthony Falls

St. PAUL, Minn. – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, is seeking comments on a plan to briefly lower the Mississippi River elevation between the Upper and Lower St. Anthony Falls dams to facilitate inspections of critical infrastructure at these facilities.

The Corps is proposing to lower the river by 12 feet to an elevation of 738 feet to facilitate the inspections. The tentative period for the inspection is scheduled to occur sometime between September and November, dependent on weather and river stages. The Corps will provide exact dates closer to the actual drawdown. The entire process of drawdown, inspection and refilling would last eight to 10 days before the pool is returned to the normal operating elevation of 750 feet.

As a part of the planned inspections, the Corps released a draft Environmental Assessment, or EA, and is seeking public comments until July 25.

The draft EA describing the project and the environmental impacts is available to the public and can be viewed and downloaded on the St. Paul District website at: http://www.mvp.usace.army.mil/Home/PublicNotices.aspx.

Questions on the project or comments on the draft EA can be directed to LeeAnn Glomski at 651-290-5595 or [email protected]. Please address all formal written correspondence on this project to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, ATTN: Regional Planning and Environment Division North, 180 5th St. E., Suite 700, St. Paul, MN 55101.

Thanks for posting this BK. Would be really interesting seeing what it looks like!

Fine by me!

I had trouble emailing to the address in public notice but got thru eventually.

Put in my vote for late fall, June is bad timing IMO for fish migrations and spawning, primarily channel cats that want to lock thru to the pool.

What does lowering that by 12′ do to the pools down stream. That would have to be dang near like a stream running through?

riverruns wrote:

What does lowering that by 12′ do to the pools down stream. That would have to be dang near like a stream running through?

It’s only pool 1, noone fishes there anyways. U of M rowing teams probably take up majority of boaters there?

Sure would concentrate all those fish……

Wouldn’t that be something down in a lower pool by us?

Deuces wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>riverruns wrote:</div>
What does lowering that by 12′ do to the pools down stream. That would have to be dang near like a stream running through?

It’s only pool 1, noone fishes there anyways. U of M rowing teams probably take up majority of boaters there?

Sure would concentrate all those fish……

Seems to be only the 1/2 mile stretch between the two dams. Not much happening in there anyway. They may even be able to divert the water around through the power-plants to keep flow. Not positive on that however.

Looks like it will be during the first week or so of October.

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https://parkconnection.org/blog/2020/9/30/rare-drawdown-mississippi-river

Here are some more details…..might have to try and check it out.

For those of us that will not see it in person, put on lots of pics please!!!

I wonder if riverruns is concerned about how the extra water will affect the pools below there.

https://www.fox9.com/news/rare-lowered-water-levels-on-mississippi-river-draws-the-curious-to-minneapolis?fbclid=IwAR2sERn3-RvDmsW4AtS2em68Ge0c9_jekoLUYUkOj_KUQYEpha07I-WaFq0

” Some come to the river out of curiosity, or, like 9-year-old Elsa Rismoen says, because her mom made her come.

“It smells horrible,” she said. “Now I feel like what a fish feels like.” ”

I haven’t been up that way for many years but I do recall my first visit up there on the water. As I was putting around my eyes starting to burn. Figured that was a good time to leave.

This link should be the start of a slide show of pictures of the draw down. I believe it only affected the stretch between the Upper and Lower St Anthony Falls locks.

https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-lifestyle/photos-rare-drawdown-of-the-mississippi-river-in-minneapolis-attracts-hundreds#&gid=ci02710a9fc0002437&pid=mississippi-river-1

I picked a horrible time to dump a body down there….