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Nola.com
It's not unusual for salt water to move upriver and threaten water supplies during Midwest drought years, said Ioannis Georgiou, a geologist with the Water Institute of the Gulf.
A portion of the lower river was dredged to 45 feet below sea level in 1988. In anticipation, in 1987, the Corps announced that it had awarded a contract to a local company to build barge moorings for fresh water offloading near the Plaquemines Parish's East and West Pointe a la Hache and Boothville water treatment plants.
And in late 1988, salt water was tracked as far north as the river's Carrollton Bend in Kenner. That year, it moved upriver more quickly than the Corps' efforts to build a blocking sill. Read the full story here.