COLUMBIA: Engineers fix sand boils
The group, which oversees a string of levees along the Mississippi River, reported four minor sand boils along the levees in the bottoms of Columbia.
The incident was similar to leaks which occurred over a week ago in the Modoc and Prairie du Rocher area.A sand boil is when water from the river seeps underneath or through a levee, causing the sand at the bottom to "boil" up.
Monroe County Emergency Management Coordinator Gene Henckler said two types of sand boils exist: Minor ones where the water boiling up is clear and more serious ones where the water is muddy in appearance.
"For the minor ones, you build a ring of sand bags around the boil to equalize the water pressure," Henckler said. "If it's a muddy boil, you take a piece of steel culvert and put that around it along with sand bags and rocks to put weight on the ground."
Henckler said two of the boils in Columbia were minor while two were major.
"We used 700 tons of rock to patch them all up," Henckler said.
Along with Henckler and the Army Corps of Engineers, levee district commissioners, the road district and the county highway department all worked feverishly to secure the boils, which if left unattended, could have compromised the integrity of the levees.
"Everyone did an excellent job," Henckler said.
Everything appears fixed, but the USACE will keep a watchful eye on the levees to make sure the solution holds.
What will help this is if the Mississippi River drops over the next week, with all indicators pointing to this. Henckler reported that as of Wednesday morning, the river had fallen to 38.3 feet, with predictions calling for 37.8 feet Thursday, 36.5 feet Friday and 35.1 feet Saturday.
"Thirty feet is flood stage so we are getting there," Henckler said.
