Flood protection projects are progressing on both sides of the Mississippi River in southeast Missouri and southern Illinois.
The Southeast Missourian reports that a contract was awarded last week for a $7.8 million project to construct two earthen berms and a 4,200-foot trench at Cairo, Ill. Meanwhile, efforts continue in Missouri to repair a levee intentionally breached during flooding in 2011.
Officials in Cairo are hopeful their project will be completed by December 2013.
The Missouri project is expected to cost more than $11 million and should be finished by the end of this year. The project restores the Birds Point levee to its original height. The breach aimed at reducing the river level damaged 130,000 acres of farmland and swamped dozens of homes in rural southeast Missouri.