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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is putting $3.1 billion toward waterway construction efforts this year and is expected to fully complete at least one major dam project, enabling it to focus on others vital to ag shipping in coming years.
Under a work plan released earlier this month, the Corps should be able to bring its renovation of Chickamauga Lock on the Tennessee River to completion, allowing it to turn its attention to other major river projects waiting to be funded, according to Waterways Council Inc. President and CEO Tracy Zea. 
Tracy Zea (Waterways Council Inc. photo)
The Corps is providing $213 million for approach walls and protection cell removal at the dam, which should allow the agency to move on in upcoming years to its Navigation and Ecosystem Sustainability Program, a long-term plan that includes several proposed refurbishments to Mississippi River dams, including a new 1,200-foot lock at Lock and Dam 25 near Winfield, Missouri.
Once Chickamauga is finished, “it's out of our backlog, and we can move on to Lock and Dam 25 and NESP,” Zea said.
Mike Steenhoek, executive director of the Soy Transportation Coalition, said the funding for the Chickamauga lock funding comes after the project has seen delays and cost overruns in recent years.
Gary Williams, executive director of the Upper Mississippi River Waterways Association, said getting big projects like Chickamauga Lock “done and out of the way allows you to get through the list” to other dams that need work, like several on the Mississippi. He also noted some dams under Corps jurisdiction have aged beyond their original expiration dates and will need maintenance or replacement at some point.
“That’s always the ticking time bomb that everybody worries about,” he said of aging dams.
Corps plans to widen Houston Ship Channel
The plan also includes $161 million for deepening and widening part of Texas’s Houston Ship Channel, a significant passage for ocean vessels traveling to and from the Port of Houston.
Steenhoek said he was hap
Mike Steenhoek (Soy Transportation Coalition photo)py to see additional funding for work at the port, noting that there are a few grain export terminals that ship grain through the channel.
“We’re wanting to see more go out of the Texas Gulf,” Steenhoek said. “It’s not going to rival the Mississippi Gulf, but it’s a part of having a diversified supply chain, so we’re happy to see additional investment down there for export capacity.”
In addition to $3.1 billion for construction projects, the work plan includes $6 billion for maintenance and operations, $531 million for Mississippi River projects and $150 million for investigations.
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Around $18 million is going to projects on the Upper Mississippi River-Illinois Waterway System for island building, floodplain restoration, water level management, wing dam and dike modification, backwater restoration, side channel restoration, and island and shoreline protection projects. Another $53 million is also being provided to the Upper Mississippi for design, construction, program management and public outreach for restoration projects, including some for wildlife habitat.
Montgomery Locks and Dam along the Ohio River in Pennsylvania will be receiving $183.9 million in the plan, including some funding for possible guard walls, electrical and mechanical features, or in-chamber features like miter sills.
The Corps will provide $2 million to repair riverbank erosion along the Ohio River in Indiana near McAlpine Locks and Dam.
Fish passage systems, dredging efforts to receive funding
Along the Columbia River in Washington, Oregon and Idaho, the Corps is putting $58.7 million toward dam upgrades meant to improve fish passage, such as salmon ladders and cooling structures. Citizens of the Pacific Northwest have long debated whether four dams along the river — Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite — are contributing to salmon population declines. In February, a federal judge ordered the Corps to increase spill levels at these dams in a decades-old Endangered Species Act lawsuit.
Overall, the corps is providing around $569.7 million for dredging and other maintenance work along various sections of the Mississippi, according to an Agri-Pulse analysis of data included in the work plan. It is providing $57.3 million to maintenance efforts along the Illinois waterway and $187.8 million along the Ohio River.
Zea, noting challenges with low water levels along the lower part of the Mississippi River in recent years, called the overall amount of funding included for dredging “good news.”
“With the last three years of being low water, there's plenty of money provided to do maintenance dredging so that we don't halt shipping,” he said.
At least $6.4 million will be used for designing dike construction projects on the Mississippi River in Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee, while $37.5 million will go toward construction of revetments.
The corps will also put $11.6 million toward levee work, including commerce channel cleanout and debris removal, safety risk assessments and training exercises.
Additionally, the agency is putting $5.2 million toward a system-wide study of stream flow data to improve its “basic understanding of the Lower Mississippi River, its impacts, and the way that it has evolved and is changing.” Over the last several years, the Mississippi River has seen multiple repeat low-water events that have slowed down harvest-season shipping.
In a comment, National Grain and Feed Association CEO Mike Seyfert said NGFA “supported the FY26 appropriations process and appreciates the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ work plan allocating those resources.”
“We are encouraged to see funding directed toward key NGFA priorities and look forward to continued collaboration to ensure these investments support an efficient and reliable agricultural supply chain,” he wrote.
Williams told Agri-Pulse that shipping stakeholders have concerns about the Corps’ ability to work through its planned projects amid staffing and resource constraints. He said the agency has been “witnessing a lot of attrition” in recent years.
“We have these major projects that the American people have been promised that are going to be completed,” Williams said. “Do they have, and will they have, the people to ensure that those projects carry through without great delays or kicking that can quite a bit down the road?”
