Location
Pool 18, Upper Mississippi River Miles 420.2 – 434.8, Louisa and Des Moines Counties, IA.
Description
The Pool 18 Forestry Habitat Rehabilitation and Enhancement Project, part of the Upper Mississippi River Restoration program, is located in portions of Louisa and Des Moines Counties in Iowa. The project area covers approximately 15 miles of Pool 18 in the Upper Mississippi River, near the towns of New Boston, Keithsburg, and Oquawka, IL, from the Iowa River delta, river mile 434.8 to Johnson Island, river mile 420.2.
The Project includes islands, mature forested wetlands, floodplain habitat, sloughs, and backwater wetland.
Project goals are derived from the River Resources Coordinating Team Pools 11-22 Environmental Pool Plan (Draft 2004), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Upper Mississippi River Systemic Forestry Stewardship Plan (2012), and other Upper Mississippi River System restoration documents. The Project will focus on restoring the floodplain topographic and vegetation diversity of Pool 18 through the protection of productive forest stands, enhancing forest species diversity and structural diversity, establishing additional forested areas that are ecologically resilient, and reduce detrimental expanse of invasive species.
The project goals are to improve forest connectivity, diversity, and redundancy by increasing floodplain vegetation and functional class diversity. The objectives identified to these goals are (1) increasing forest resiliency by sustaining health and growth of forests through targeted treatment of tree age cohorts, species composition, and structure diversity; (2) increase topographic diversity to enhance tree survival, wetland function and habitat for a variety of birds, mammals and bats; (3) increasing longevity of existing healthy trees by reducing overall tree density and increase available growing space; (4) restoring early successional forested wetland habitat, and (5) restoring, maintaining, and enhancing floodplain vegetation diversity.
Potential Project Features include:
- Timber stand improvements for forest diversity (i.e. crown thinning, basal area thinning, understory thinning, various tree planting efforts).
- Non-native species eradication and tree planting efforts to reestablish forested wetland and preventing re-establishment of non-native species.
- Establishing ridge and swale habitat to provide topographic diversity in support of diverse tree species survival and isolated wetland creation.
Background
The entirety of the project area islands and backwater lakes in Pool 18 are in Federal ownership and are currently managed by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (IADNR) as part of the General Plan lands agreement with the Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Pool 18 is host to a diverse population of wildlife, including migratory waterfowl and shorebirds, warm water fish species, furbearers, deer, swans, pelicans, eagles, wading birds, and various reptiles and amphibians. The state-endangered copperbelly water snake and state-threatened diamondback water snake have known populations documented near the Project area at Lake Odessa.
Status
Feasibility report started in October 2023 and is scheduled for completion in October 2027.
Additional Information
Authority
Water Resource Development Act (WRDA) of 1986 under Section 1103 (33 U.S.C 2201 et seq.; P.L. 99-662, 1986)
CG - Construction General
Summarized Project Costs
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Estimated Federal Cost
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$20,000,000
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Estimated Non-Federal Cost
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$0
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Estimated Total Project Cost
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$20,000,000
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Allocations Prior to FY 2024
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$26,697
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FY 2024 Allocation
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$600,000
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FY 2025 President’s Budget
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$600,000
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FY 2025 Total Capability
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$600,000
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Major Work Item Current Year
FY 2024: The project moved forward with the feasibility report and pre-project monitoring.
Major Work Item Next Fiscal Year
FY 2025: If funded, the project will continue to advance the feasibility report and pre-project monitoring.