News

Illinois River highest since ’93

The Illinois River is challenging its banks in the western part of the state threatening to flood already wet fields.  The river is nearing levels that haven’t been seen since 1993, according to Blake Roderick, executive director of the Pike and Scott County Farm Bureaus.  People – Roderick calls them flood fighters – are adding sandbags and wooden fences to the low parts of the levees in an attempt to keep the river in its banks.

“So far they’ve been successful in holding the water back,” Roderick told Brownfield Ag News Wednesday, “but the water is almost to the top of some of these levees and the weather service is predicting that the Illinois River will crest in my area, west of Springfield, sometime today.”

In some areas, Roderick says, the Illinois River only drops about a foot every mile, so the water moves slowly down stream.

“It doesn’t take a lot to fill it, to get it up to high flood heights, but it takes forever to get it down below flood stage,” he said.

Roderick says the next couple of weeks are critical for levees on the lower part of the Illinois River.

AUDIO: Blake Roderick (8 min. MP3)