Emmett Sanders Lock and Dam is located at navigation mile 66 on the Arkansas River within the Lower Arkansas River Watershed and is a part of the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System.  It is located within Jefferson County, Arkansas, east of Pine Bluff and west of Altheimer.  The ESLD is the 4^th L&D of the 18 lock and dams along the MKARNS, with U.S Route 79 running directly over it. 

The MKARNS is 445 miles long and stretches from the Port of Catoosa near Tulsa, Oklahoma, downstream to the confluence of the Mississippi River in southeast Arkansas.  The project area resides completely within USACE federal property and will not involve in any part of the Arkansas River.  However, it will use a part of the Sheppard Island Public Use Area as a temporary lay down area for repair and construction equipment and for place of where the mitigation would occur.

The area of water that ESLD controls and maintains begins at ESLD and proceeds upstream to Maynard L&D at nautical mile 86.   The authorized purpose of the ESLD is to provide for navigation with the larger MKARNS having to support for recreation, fish and wildlife, water supply, and irrigation.

The purpose is to increase protection and resilience of the left embankment from erosion and scouring during future flood events.

The need for the Proposed Action arises from the 2019 flood event, after which temporary measures were put in place, however, a more permanent solution is needed as the current solution does not adequately protect against larger flood events.  Without increased protection, the embankment that ties in the lock, dam and road are at a higher risk of substantial damage during future flood events.

The Suggested Repairs

The repairs would consist of the removal of existing emergency repair materials and the placement of a new engineered soil composition and rip rap to prevent erosion during flood events. To accommodate this new material, the left embankment toe/heel locations would be readjusted, which will require the removal of up to 1.6 acres of bottomland hardwood forest (BHF).  Mitigation for the loss of 1.6 acres of BHF would occur via planting and maintaining up to 1.75 acres of fallow field, converting it to BHF within the Sheppard Island Public Use Area.  The associated work would consist of building an access road on the left embankment crown, as well as navigation pass through it. The access road is needed to allow repair and emergency vehicles access to the left embankment armoring on the Arkansas River.  The navigation pass is needed to facilitate the safe of passage of emergency vessels through the embankment during flood conditions.