ROCK ISLAND, Illinois – The Rock Island, St. Paul, and St. Louis Districts of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, along with their partners, will host a ceremony Aug. 8 at 4:30 p.m. to commemorate 30 years of service for the Upper Mississippi River Restoration Program. The ceremony will take place at Riverside Park, adjacent to the Radisson Hotel in La Crosse, Wisconsin.
The public is welcome to attend the event which will feature speakers from a variety of partners both governmental and non-governmental all commemorating a program that has spent three decades restoring and monitoring habitat throughout the Upper Mississippi River system.
The Water Resource Development Act of 1986 authorized the establishment of the Environmental Management Program which recognized the Upper Mississippi River System as not only nationally significant navigation corridor but also a nationally significant ecosystem. The Environmental Management Program would evolve into the present-day UMRR. For 30 years, the Corps of Engineers, along with its federal and non-federal partners, has planned, designed and constructed nearly 55 projects. Those projects have resulted in more than 102,000 acres of restored habitat on the Upper Mississippi River System. In addition to habitats restored, the UMRR Program has used long term resource monitoring to gather critical knowledge about the health of the Upper Mississippi River System.
Prior to the ceremony, from 11:30 am to 3:30 pm, a variety of family-friendly activates and information booths will be open to the general public. For more information regarding the ceremony, call Allen Marshall with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Rock Island District, at (309) 794-5204, or George Stringham, of the St. Paul District, at (651) 290-5201.
(Media Note: Prior to the ceremony, tours of an UMRR project are being organized by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. The WDNR is planning a tour, for media members, of the Pool 8 Habitat Rehabilitation and Enhancement Project. The tours are scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. on Aug. 8. For more information, call Jeff Janvrin at (608) 785-9005.)
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