Mississippi River’s Dropping Level Threatens Louisiana Water Supplies

Louisiana officials are distributing emergency water and ice south of New Orleans because a lack of rainfall has lowered the level of the Mississippi River and allowed salt water to flow north from the Gulf of Mexico.

The contamination has reached the intakes for the Boothville water plant in Plaquemines Parish, increasing the amount of sodium and chloride in the water coming from taps in some local homes and businesses, according to the nola.com website.

Households are each eligible to pick up two cases of bottled water daily at local fire stations from the parish and the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, the site said Saturday.

People at risk of health problems from drinking tap water were reportedly warned to check with their healthcare providers late last month.

As many as 19 pallets of water bottles are available each day and the parish is seeking to have water tankers, or "buffaloes," set up at the sites, nola.com said.

The company that supplies the parish's water, Inframark, is looking for a reverse osmosis filtering unit to remove the salt, parish spokesperson Shannta Carter said.

Efforts are also underway to repair a water treatment plant in Port Sulfur that was damaged by Hurricane Ida.

"If the repairs at the Port Sulphur location can be completed without interference from the intrusion, the treatment plant would be able to produce enough water to serve the entire southern part of the parish," Carter told nola.com.

The Mississippi River's level is expected to continue dropping at least through the end of the month due to a shortage of rain in the Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio valleys during the past five to six weeks, National Weather Service hydrologist Jeffrey Graschel said.

"The lack of rainfall is attributable to more of a stagnant weather pattern which has steered rainfall more over the Rockies and southeast U.S.," he told nola.com.

Graschel, who works at the Lower Mississippi River Forecast Center, said there were "indications over the next couple of weeks that better chances of rainfall will occur over the Midwest."

"It is too soon to know exactly how this will impact the river since soil moisture conditions are very dry, but any rainfall will be beneficial," he said.

This is the second year in a row that public water supplies have been threatened by saltwater in the Mississippi River, nola.com said.

The Army Corps of Engineers is reportedly considering installing an underwater earthen dam just north of Myrtle Grove to block the northward flow of saltwater, which is heavier than fresh water.

A barrier was installed there last year but it eroded during the fall and winter when large amounts of fresh water flowed into the river.