A barge and transportation industry group is sharply criticizing the president’s budget request for river infrastructure and upkeep. Waterways Council Inc. called President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2017 budget request for the U.S. Army Corps the "most disappointing to date." The budget proposes $4.6 billion for the Corps’ civil works program, nearly 30 percent less than the current appropriation by Congress. Waterways president and CEO Mike Toohey said the Corps is already struggling to keep up with maintenance on aging lock and dam systems on the Mississippi and Illinois rivers. " The Corps has gone to a strategy of not doing preventative maintenance on these 1930s and ' 40s locks," Toohey said. "They’ve gone to a strategy of fixing them when they break. They call it their fix as fails strategy." Toohey pointed to the shutdown of the Melvin Price Lock and Dam just south of Alton to replace cables in 2014. He said the repair finished just before the harvest when farmers send millions
↧
