Mississippi River levels have fallen, but that’s only temporary reassurance for residents of Grand Tower, Illinois. The small Jackson County town’s levee is unstable, and if waters rise again, the levee may not hold.
Roger Caveness’ pickup truck rumbled down a levee road along the Big Muddy River near Grand Tower. On one side of the levee, there’s the Big Muddy River, near its confluence with the Mississippi River. On the other side, soggy farmland, and beyond that, the remaining homes and businesses in this town of about 600 people.
“We’ve got a lot of interior water,” Caveness said. “We’re having trouble getting it out because we can’t open the locks up to drain it to the other side of the levee and get it off the farm ground. If we get a lot of heavy rains it’s going to keep building up and it could get serious going into town.”
Caveness is the president of the local levee district, and he can’t open up those locks because the big metal pipe that runs under this levee collapsed. That makes the levee act like a dam, trapping water on the interior side. Cavenessstopped his truck in front of three monster pits on the levee.
“This is the lock that’s caved in, and as you can see, we’ve got a large hole in the center of the levee and that’s due to the pipe collapse. And we have them on the interior side. That’s also collapsed. So pretty well, the whole pipe is gone under the levee,” Caveness said.
To fix it, they’ll have to cut the levee in two and add a whole new pipe and lock structure. And it’s expensive - between $750,000 and $1 million. The levee district doesn’t have the money; they collect about $14,000 every year in local taxes. And the Army Corps of Engineers can’t pay because the Grand Tower Levee District failed maintenance inspection tests last year, and that essentially booted Grand Tower out of the Corps’ flood rehabilitation program.
Matthew Hunn manages the Flood Risk Management Program and Flood Recovery Project for the Army Corps of Engineers’ St. Louis District. He said his biggest concerns are the weak points in the corrugated pipes.
“This drain is pretty critical to the village there because it catches a lot of water from the village,” Hunn said. “Without that drain, that water is going to be in there and it’s going to put water in the village and on Route 3.”
The drain was installed in the 1950s, but these corrugated metal pipes only have a life expectancy of about 30 years. Hunn said this was the third one that collapsed during this spring’s flooding. The others were in East St. Louis and at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.
But since the Grand Tower Levee District didn’t pass maintenance inspections, the Corps can’t pay to fix it.
“I don’t want to leave anybody with the perception that the Levee District has been sitting there not doing anything,” Hunn said. “They have very limited funds and they’re trying to do maintenance on a large levee system. They’ve been doing a lot of work to do this, and there are just a few additional items that were keeping them from being active in the program.”
So Hunn is helping Grand Tower look for state and federal funds to fix the levee. And, he added, if Mississippi River levels rise to a point that backs its water into the Big Muddy and threatens the community, the Corps will come in with immediate support.
Back in Roger Caveness’ truck, he said despite the dangers, people in Grand Tower don’t want to leave.
“It’s just a small community. A lot of people have lived here their whole lives,” Caveness said. “They don’t want to move. They realize they’re in the floodplain. They keep holding on. They were born here and they want to stay. It’s home to them.”
