Boise State University ScholarWorks Faculty Authored Books 2014 Hope for the Dammed: The .SU . Army Corps of Engineers and the Greening of the Mississippi Todd Shallat Boise State University,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/fac_books Part of the Other American Studies Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Shallat, Todd, "Hope for the Dammed: The .SU . Army Corps of Engineers and the Greening of the Mississippi" (2014). Faculty Authored Books. Book 391. http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/fac_books/391 33 HOPE FOR THE DAMMED The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Greening of the Mississippi Todd Shallat, Ph.D. Hope for the Dammed By Todd Shallat, Ph.D. Hope for the Dammed On the Cover: Accommodating approximately 70 million tons of commercial traffic annually, the Melvin Price Locks and Dam 26 is the largest of its kind on the Mississippi River. Melvin Price Locks and Dam replaced Lock and Dam 26, which was demolished in 1990. Almost from the beginning, Lock and Dam 26 was plagued with structural defi- ciencies. Scour holes developed below the dam. This was of particular concern because some of the holes were deeper than the wooden pilings supporting the dam. The scouring of the riverbed led to the disintegration of the concrete and a loss of founda- tion material, which eventually resulted in excessive deflections and settlement of the lock walls and dam piers. The construction of the Melvin Price Locks and Dam constituted the first replacement of an original installation of the 9-Foot Channel Project.