MISSISSIPPI RIVER – Pool #4, Everts Resort
Pool 4 extends from Lock & Dam 4 located near Alma, Wisconsin upstream to Lock & Dam 3 located near Hager City, Wisconsin.
Unlike the Lower Mississippi, much of the upper river is a series of pools created by a system of 29 locks and dams. The structures were authorized by Congress in the 1930s, and most were completed by 1940. A primary reason for damming the river is to facilitate barge transportation. The dams regulate water levels for the Upper River and play a major part in regulating levels on the Lower Mississippi.
Navigation locks allow towboats, barges, and other vessels to transit the dams. Approximately 1350 kilometers (850 mi), from the head of navigation in Mile 858, Minneapolis, Minnesota down to Cairo, has been made suitable for commercial navigation with a depth of 2.75 meters (9 ft) The agriculture and barge transportation industries have lobbied in the late 20th and early 21st centuries for a multi-billion-dollar project to upgrade the aging lock and dam system. Some environmental groups and advocates of budgetary restraint argue that the project lacks economic justification.
Each lock and dam complex creates a pool upstream of it. There are 29 locks on the Upper Mississippi maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—from Upper St. Anthony Falls upstream to Chain of Rocks downstream. The locks provide a collective 123 meters (404 ft) of lift. ~wikipedia
These photos were taken just downriver from Lock & Dam 3 at Everts Resort. The sunset and clouds were fantastic this last Friday.
Looking downstream towards Everts Resort
Everts Resort
Looking upstream at Lock & Dam 3 off in the distance. You can see the steam rising from the cooling towers at Prairie Island Nuclear Plant right below the sun.
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