Louisiana officials say barges, desalination machines and pipelines will be needed to combat the saltwater intrusion creeping up the Mississippi River.
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00:00 Less water, more river banks and sandbars.
00:03 The mighty Mississippi River is running low and slow from Memphis, Tennessee to Greenville, Mississippi.
00:10 The first time ever that this has happened like this back to back.
00:13 For the second fall in a row, those low and slow river levels are allowing saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico to inch up the Mississippi River.
00:22 Not like a hurricane or a tropical storm where the storm comes through, it does its damage.
00:27 This is like the blob kind of creeping up the river.
00:31 The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers started barging in loads of river water from up north,
00:37 down to treatment facilities in Plaquemines Parish, dealing with high salinity levels.
00:42 The need for water barges could grow dramatically as the saltwater wedge inches closer to New Orleans.
00:50 The max capacity for the water treatment plants that have requested assistance is about 35 million gallons per day of fresh water.
00:57 Work is also underway to expand a sill or underwater barrier to slow the saltwater wedge.
01:04 Leaders say they're doing everything they can to minimize impacts to drinking water supplies,
01:10 irrigation for farmers and to prevent damage to appliances and infrastructure.
01:16 There's really no need to panic. Our water is safe.
01:20 There is not a water shortage in our country.
01:23 We're going to have drinking water, bottled water, in our grocery stores.
01:28 Officials say they're spending millions on barges, bottled water and pipeline projects.
01:35 What they need is substantial rain in the Mississippi Valley that has faced drought conditions for months.
01:42 For AccuWeather, I'm Bill Waddell.
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