Work is resuming on the intentionally breached Birds Point levee in southeast Missouri now that a protest to a construction bid has been deemed "without merit" by the Army Corps of Engineers.
An Oklahoma company last month protested the $20 million in contracts awarded to three other companies to rebuild the levee, which was intentionally breached at the height of 2011 flooding along the Mississippi River. The breach relieved pressure on the flood wall at nearby Cairo, Ill., but damaged 130,000 acres of rich Missouri farmland and dozens of homes.
A project update issued by the corps said the protest was overruled by the chief counsel of the corps' Missouri Valley Division.
