Mv. Mississippi Public Events On UMR Canceled

The Rock Island Engineer District canceled two open house events on the mv. Mississippi, the nation’s largest diesel towboat, that had been scheduled for August 10 and 11 in Davenport and Dubuque, Iowa. In a brief statement, the district said the cancellation came because of renewed concerns about COVID-19.  A new Delta variant has been spreading in the unvaccinated population, in some regions driving numbers of hospitalizations back up.

The St. Paul District also canceled three events that had been planned for August 12, 13, and 14 in La Crosse, Wis., and Wabasha and Red Wing, Minn., respectively.

The mv. Mississippi is the largest diesel towboat ever built in the United States and is owned and operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It spends most of the year as a working towboat for the Corps’ Mat Sinking Unit, but it is also used by the Mississippi River Commission for conducting public hearings and inspections of Corps projects along the Mississippi River.

As of last week, the commission’s public hearings scheduled for late August are still planned to go forward. Those hearings are set for Caruthersville, Mo., August 23; Memphis, Tenn., August 24; Greenville, Miss., August 25; and Morgan City, La., August 27.