[t-tomshooter]

after watching the news and hearing everyone talking about levee's around MO breaking and flooding more and more areas, im just wondering what do most of these farmers do to maintain them and check them? and what do they initially plant on them to keep them strong? most of the ones i have seen are fescue and maintained with a mower or some are left idle, but we all know fescue is a short root system and wouldnt be the best type of grass to keep the levee the strongest right? im just curious as why they dont push for all levee's to be planted in Native grass that is known to grow 12ft root systems and even help drain the water better? now if this has been discussed before i am sorry but i think alot of this could be prevented JMHO. thanks

 

[wiser1]

I know down south ,in the bootheel ,they are burning off levees and converting to switchgrass and native grasses in the levee districts ........Not sure up in st charles area if farmers do maintenance on the levees ...or who maintains them Corp of engineers ?

 

[bverboy]

around here the levee districts keep em mowed and what grass grows is it.. ground hogs dens and saturated levees is the biggest issue here.. pin oak levee at Winfield failed last night

 

[henry]

The root system on wsg allows moisture to penetrate the soil. Im not sure thats the best choice either. Rip wrap would probably be the only thing that would prevent failure in extended periods of flooding like we are seeing. 02

 

[t-tomshooter]

switchgrass seams like it would be good! the pictures i see on the news where they fly drones over and you can tell its mowed fescue, im thinking something should change! what is rip wrap old buddy

 

[bverboy]

rip rap, shot rock same thing.... big rocks

 

[archer66]

The levees along the Mississippi River north of Hannibal are earth and sand. They generally don’t grow much due to the high sand content. They are maintained by the drainage districts.

I trust the US Army Corps of engineers to know what’s best as far as construction and maintenance goes. Ideally concrete would be great but that’s cost prohibitive. Rip rap would help stabilize but does nothing to prevent saturation but I’m sure that’s cost prohibitive too. Plus if they were rip rap it would be impossible to push more dirt up to raise height and imagine how hard it would be to sand bag.

The levees are built to withstand typical annual flooding. They are not built to handle these high levels or to handle high water for this long of a time. The CORPS regulates how higher the levees can be and probably what they’re made of.

The levee around the chemical plant where I work is 35 feet I believe , which is way higher than the levees up and down river. I also think it has less sand in it as evidenced by the borrow pit created in its construction and by the fact that it grows nice thick grass instead of sand burrs and ragweed.