Residents of the Bottoms in southern Monroe County and Prairie du Rocher can “breathe a little easier” with repair work now underway on a scour hole near Fults, Monroe County Public Safety Director Kevin Scheibe reported during Wednesday’s meeting of the Monroe County Board.

Scheibe explained that work to fill the scour hole was approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Oct. 31 after a retired civil engineer with extensive knowledge of the river system near Fults suggested a novel idea for fixing the problem in the Stringtown Drainage and Levee District. He proposed using sand and clay from a nearby “legacy levee” built in the 1800s to repair the hole.

The Corps approved the plan with the stipulation that only materials to be used are sediment expelled from the scour hole and organic material from the “footprint” of the old levee – which was determined to be the cause of the scour hole in the first place.

The fix is timely and cost-effective, as work began Saturday using daily equipment and labor rental from Luhr Crosby Marine Contractors in Columbia. Since no materials need to be brought in, the maximum cost of the repair is $400,000, with some estimates at almost half that amount. Repair estimates when the problem was first announced publicly in August ranged from $3-6 million.

Scheibe added that the repairs could be complete within 30 days, with the project preventing predicted “devastation” for up to 45,000 acres and 500 residences in Monroe County in addition to the Fort de Chartres State Historic Site and surrounding area in Randolph County.

Local government agencies and organizations have been engaged in conversations for sharing the cost of the project, although nothing has been officially approved yet.

Read more about the unique approach to the scour hole repair in the Nov. 26 issue of the Republic-Times.