That week the Mississippi River dropped 4 feet on us near Baton Rouge

I mean, last spring we were pulling a 12-inch cutterhead through that soft silt for three days straight, everything was running smooth. Then the river level just dropped overnight and we started hitting concrete-hard clay mixed with old steel cable. Ruined two sets of teeth in like 6 hours. Has anyone else dealt with sudden bottom changes like that from water levels dropping?

2 comments

2 Comments

linda62621d ago

You said "the river level just dropped overnight" and I gotta push back on that a little. Rivers don't drop that fast unless there's something weird going on upstream like a lock failure or dam release. The Mississippi's water level changes are usually more gradual, a foot or two over a couple days at most in my experience. What you're describing sounds like the bottom shifted and the cutterhead dug into something it wasn't hitting before. That hard clay and old steel cable was probably buried under silt the whole time, and the cutter just finally exposed it, not that the river dropped and exposed a new bottom. I've seen that happen plenty where the soft stuff gets sheared off by the dredge itself and then you're into the junk layer underneath. Might be worth checking if the water level really dropped or if you just wore through a soft spot.

the_avery21d ago

So the river just magically dropped overnight like a bathtub while you were sleeping?