The McClellan–Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System (MKARNS) is part of the United States inland waterway system originating at the

Tulsa Port of Catoosa The Tulsa Ports consist of the ports of Catoosa and Inola near Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States, on the Verdigris River, a tributary of the Arkansas River, Arkansas and Mississippi Rivers. The ports are at and near the head of navigation for the M ...

and running southeast through

Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...

and

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the West South Central region of the Southern United States. It borders Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, Texas to the southwest, and Oklahoma ...

to the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...

. The total length of the system is . It was named for two senators, Robert S. Kerr (D-OK) and John L. McClellan (D-AR), who pushed its authorizing legislation through Congress. The system officially opened on June 5, 1971. President Richard M. Nixon attended the opening ceremony.O'Dell, Larry
"McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System"
''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture''. It is operated by the Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). While the system primarily follows the

Arkansas River The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's source basin lies in Colorado, specifically ...

, it also includes portions of the Verdigris River in Oklahoma, the White River in Arkansas, and the Arkansas Post Canal, a short

canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface ...

named for the nearby Arkansas Post National Memorial, which connects the Arkansas and White Rivers. Through Oklahoma and Arkansas, dams artificially deepen and widen the modest-sized river to build it into a commercially navigable body of water. The design enables traffic to overcome an elevation difference of between the Mississippi River and the Tulsa Port of Catoosa. Along the section of the Arkansas River that carries the McClellan–Kerr channel, the river sustains commercial barge traffic and offers passenger and recreational use. Here, the system is a series of reservoirs.

Official change of significance

The U.S. Department of Transportation officially announced in early May 2015 that it had upgraded MKARNS from "Connector" to "Corridor" on the National Marine Highway. The announcement also added the Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) as an official sponsor."Oklahoma Waterway Takes Prestigious Step Up in National Status (PRESS RELEASE)". U.S. Department of Transportation. May 15, 2015. In 2015, the USACE increased its designation of the MKARNS from a moderate-use to a high-use waterway system, which means that a waterway carries more than 10 million tons per year, having a value of more than 12 million ton-miles per year.

Construction

The Arkansas River is very shallow through Arkansas and Oklahoma, and was naturally incapable of supporting river traffic through most of the year. To allow for navigation, construction was started in 1963 on a system of channels and locks to connect the many reservoirs along the length of the Arkansas River. The first section, running to

Little Rock, Arkansas Little Rock is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Arkansas, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The city's population was 202,591 as of the 2020 census. The six-county Central Arkan ...

, opened on January 1, 1969. The first barge to reach the Port of Catoosa arrived in early 1971. Each lock measures wide and long, the standard size for much of the Mississippi River waterway. Standard jumbo

barge A barge is typically a flat-bottomed boat, flat-bottomed vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. Original use was on inland waterways, while modern use is on both inland and ocean, marine water environments. The firs ...

s, measuring 35 by , are grouped three wide by three long, with a tug at center rear, to form a barge tow that can be fit into a lock. Larger barge tows must be broken down and passed through the lock in sections, and rejoined on the opposite side."McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System 2016 Inland Waterway Fact Sheet"
Oklahoma Department of Transportation. 2016. Accessed June 16, 2017. The specifications for the channel itself are: *Depth of channel: or more *Width of channel: mostly *Bridge clearance: horizontal, vertical Although Congress originally authorized USACE to dredge the channel to a depth of in 2005, it did not provide the funds to do so. ODOT says that the capacity of each barge could be increased by 200 tons for each foot of draft. An article in 2010 stated that much of MKARNS is already deep, so that only about would need to be deepened. The article quoted Lt. Col. Gene Snyman, then deputy commander of the USACE's Tulsa District, as saying such a project would cost about $170 million (in 2010 dollars).Kramer, Kirk (October 17, 2010)

''Muskogee Phoenix''. Accessed June 20, 2017.

Lock information

The tables below list the features of the navigation system, from the Mississippi River to the origin at the Port of Catoosa. Except as noted, all locks are on the Arkansas River. No lock 11 exists; sequentially, it would have been in the middle of

Lake Dardanelle Lake Dardanelle is a major reservoir on the Arkansas River in Arkansas, USA. and is an integral part of the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System (MKARNS), which allows barge transportation from the Mississippi River to the Tulsa Port o ...

. Per the animated system map (see "External links"), Dardanelle Lock and Dam (lock 10), which forms Lake Dardanelle, is the highest facility on the system (54 feet between upper and lower pools); Ozark-Jeta Taylor Lock and Dam (lock 12), just above that lake, is the third-highest (34 ft). Thus, those two facilities likely were redesigned, in terms of height and possibly location, so as to eliminate lock 11 as originally planned. The Mississippi River lock is numbered lock 99, as it was added to the system after it was completed.

2019 Arkansas River flooding

Extremely heavy rains hit the Arkansas River upstream of Keystone Dam during late May and early June 2019. So much water poured into the Keystone Reservoir in a short time that it quickly became evident that a major release of water would be needed to prevent overtopping the dam, causing devastating floods downstream. Even so, water rushed downstream toward MKARNS at such a high rate that officials at USACE halted barge traffic to avoid calamities such as collisions or hitting trees and debris afloat in the river.Morgan, Rhett (October 11, 2019)
"Limited waterway traffic returns to McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System"
''Tulsa World''. Accessed October 22, 2019. By October, barge traffic was allowed on a limited basis. Normally, tows comprise 12 to 16 barges. However, the flood carried so much silt down river that redredging would be required to return to normal traffic patterns. In October, the tows were limited to six barges (two wide and three deep). The 2019 flood deposited about 1.5 million cubic yards of sediment into the waterway, As of February 2020, barge traffic remained limited by tow size and restricted to daylight hours only due to sediment. USACE was expected to complete the dredging of sediment by late May 2020.

Waterway traffic control

The growth of business along MKARNS has greatly increased congestion at the locks. The Secretary of the Army has directed USACE to establish these priorities for admitting vessels to each lock: # Vessels owned by the U.S. government # Commercial passenger vessels # Commercial vessels (e.g., barges) # Rafts # Pleasure and other craft No minimum size is required for watercraft using the locks. Craft as small as canoes, dinghies, and kayaks have all been allowed to use the locks, either alone or with multiple other vessels at the same time. If commercial traffic is heavy, pleasure craft may be required to wait about 1.5 hours or may be allowed to lock through with commercial vessels.army.mil

Notes

References

External links

Map
of navigation system
History of the Arkansas RiverUS Army Corps of Engineers

district navigation information
Oklahoma Digital Maps: Digital Collections of Oklahoma and Indian Territory
{{DEFAULTSORT:McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System Arkansas River Waterways in the United States Canals opened in 1971 Canals in Arkansas Canals in Oklahoma Infrastructure in Oklahoma