USACE completes dredging for McGregor Lake project

The McGregor Lake Habitat Rehabilitation and Enhancement Project, or HREP, located in Pool 10 of the Upper Mississippi River, recently completed its dredging phase.

The 580-acre McGregor Lake HREP includes the mid-river McGregor Lake and adjacent island and slough habitat between the main channel and east channel.

The HREP will enhance fish and wildlife habitat using 70,000 cubic yards of dredged material.

“This project will improve habitat diversity by reducing shoreline erosion, sedimentation and wind-driven wave action,” said Zach Kimmel, project manager.

The dredged material wasn’t always intended for McGregor Lake. When the district navigation branch experienced a shortage of dredged material placement site capacity, the Corps combined its Upper Mississippi River Restoration, UMRR, authority and 9-Foot navigation channel authority to place dredged material at McGregor Lake.

This cost-saving solution not only provided critical placement site capacity for dredged material, it also elevated approximately 12 acres of floodplain forest and saved the UMRR program almost $1 million dollars.

Using district vessels, including the Dredge Wade and Motor Vessels Lyon, Wells and McNamara, the crew dredged the Mississippi River main channel near McMillan Island and transported the dredged material to the McGregor Lake HREP site.

At McGregor Lake, the crew transferred the sand from material barges, which transited as far as 14 miles from the project site, to the upper end of McGregor Lake.