Birds Point-New Madrid levee repair contracts awarded

Restoration of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' flood risk management system is moving along quickly through the summer in Missouri and Kentucky.

The corps awarded contracts Tuesday for repair of the lower crevasse in the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway levee in New Madrid County, Mo., and the installation of 112 relief wells and associated drainage work in Fulton County, Ky.

The lower crevasse was created for outflow of water from the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway by the corps in May 2011 after record-setting flooding prompted engineers to breach the levee in three locations. A $710,000 contract to repair them was awarded to Young's General Contracting of Poplar Bluff, Mo. The same company is repairing the levee's upper and middle crevasses.

Regina Kuykendoll-Cash, a corps project manager, said the company has not yet been issued a notice to proceed with work, but that should happen sometime within the next week and that the projected completion date for the project is the first week in October. Work is going quickly on the upper and middle crevasses, she said.

Crews have begun clearing work for the middle and as of Friday had placed around 50,000 cubic yards of material in the upper area, which will require a total of 245,000 cubic yards of filler upon completion. The work on the crevasses this summer and fall will restore the levee to 55 feet of protection on the Cairo, Ill., gauge.

Corps officials have said the total restoration of the levee to its original height of 62.5 feet will be completed by the end of this year.

"If the weather continues to be favorable, we will have a very productive construction season and keep on our schedule," Kuykendoll-Cash said.

A $4.2 million contract for work that will begin soon in Fulton County, Ky., went to Jerry B. Young Construction Inc. of Lebanon, Tenn.

eragan@semissourian.com

388-3627

Pertinent address:

Wyatt, MO

Fulton, KY