Study to determine options for logjams on Black River

A study is expected to begin this year into the logjams that continue to choke the Black River south of Poplar Bluff, and which have been blamed for the frequent flooding of homes, farmland and roads in southern Butler County.

The study will help determine options for dealing with the problem and comes after more than four years of effort by Butler County officials to reach a resolution with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“We have to have everyone on the same page, we have to work together,” explained Presiding Butler County Commissioner Vince Lampe, who was first part of a roundtable discussion in August 2015 with landowners, levee districts and federal officials.

Butler County began asking the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at that time for the study the Corps has said is necessary before any work on the river can begin.

Phase 1 of the project will cost $280,000, with half provided by the Corps. The county and city will each commit $50,000 to the project, according to action taken by officials in May and June. Other partners for Phase 1 funding are Levee District 7, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, the Missouri Department of Transportation and the Missouri Department of Conservation.

Phase 1 will include gage analysis, climate variability and a closer look at ground water and Clearwater Dam operations. It is expected to take several months to complete.

A second phase, not yet funded, will also be needed to finish the study.

“What it’s going to do is tell us is what we can and cannot do,” explained Lampe, adding the Corps will not allow the county to do anything without the study.

Corps officials in 2015 said updated technical information would lay the foundation for a construction project.

Landowners at the time said after years of neglect and abuse, the Black River was being asked to do more than it could. It is a problem they said results in more levee breaks, which cause more flooding.

About half of the river’s top 30 crests at the Poplar Bluff gauge have happened since 2002, according to records kept by the National Weather Service. Records date back to at least 1927.

A record was set at Poplar Bluff in 2008 of 22.15 feet. A 2017 flood came close to the record, at 21.96 feet.

Multiple levee breaks have been reported in recent years. In 2011, the main levee between Poplar Bluff and Qulin overtopped in more than three dozen places and breached near Poplar Bluff, according Butler County officials.

While the river once handled steamboat traffic, members of the Missouri State Highway Patrol said a year ago they often have difficulty traveling it by johnboat.

Downed trees, limbs and other debris can create a maze of obstructions for approximately 35 miles to the Arkansas border.

The Corps has warned there are multiple competing interests and uses that have to be considered before any project is done to clean out the river.

The river was last cleaned out in the early 1990s.