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Regular Session, 2012 ENROLLED
SENATE RESOLUTION NO. 47
BY SENATORS WALSWORTH, RI SER AND THOMPSON
A RESOLUTION
To urge and request the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to maintain its current hours of
operations at its four locks and dams on the Ouachita River.
WHEREAS, the U.S.Army Corps of Engineers ("Corps") has announced plans to
reduce its hours of operations for the Ouachita River navigation project; and
WHEREAS, the project maintains the Ouachita River's navigational capabilities and
has been in force since the 1920s; and
WHEREAS, officials at the Ouachita River Valley Association predict that reducing
the hours of operations will mark the beginning of the end of navigation on the Ouachita
River ("river"); and
WHEREAS, the Corps' proposal would reduce the current twenty-four hour, seven
days a week operation on the river's four locks and dams to an eighteen hour, seven days a
week operation at the Jonesville and Columbia locks and dams in Louisiana and a sixteen-
hour Friday, Saturday and Sunday schedule at the Felsenthal and H.K. Thatcher locks and
dams in Arkansas; and
WHEREAS, Corps' officials declare that it costs about ten million five hundred
thousand dollars annually to operate the river's navigational system but the total budget for
the current fiscal year was only a little over seven million dollars and that the Corps cannot
afford to continue the current level of operation; and
WHEREAS, oil businesses in Arkansas have already abandoned river traffic in favor
of a pipeline because of the uncertainty over the future of dredging operations by the Corps
and public officials in southern Arkansas say at least four economic development prospects
have been lost during the past year because of concerns over the river's navigability; and
WHEREAS, D&J Construction in West Monroe, which has shipped rock to its river
yard for nearly three decades, and Ouachita Terminals, which is trying to develop
waterborne containers to develop the water side of the Greater Ouachita Port , both maintain
that shipping companies are not going to make a substantial investment to establish lines to
the Greater Ouachita Port if the river is no longer navigable; and SR NO. 47 ENROLLED
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WHEREAS, if the Corps cuts back its operations, industries like Graphic Packaging
in West Monroe would no longer have access to the millions of gallons of water it pulls from
the river each day to run its operations; and
WHEREAS, officials in Monroe and West Monroe insist that cutting the Corps'
operations would produce small savings, while such reductions on the river could lead to the
abandonment of two hundred sixty million dollars in infrastructure; and
WHEREAS, many in Louisiana view the reduction of the Corps' operations on the
river with great concern and say that the entire project, along with millions in business
dollars and jobs, would be lost in less than a decade.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Senate of the Legislature of Louisiana
does hereby urge and request the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to maintain its current hours
of operations at its four locks and dams on the Ouachita River and find a funding source for
continuing its current level of operations.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this Resolution be transmitted to
Colonel Jeffrey R. Eckstein, district commander for the Vicksburg District, U.S. Corps of
Engineers.
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE