Aerial View of Pump Locations at Cuivre Island HREP

Welcome to the website for the Cuivre Island Habitat Rehabilitation and Enhancement Project (HREP). This project is being constructed to benefit fish and wildlife by: maintaining and improving side channel habitat by preventing river-borne sediment from filling side channels, providing overwintering and summer habitat for fish in side channels, increasing habitat quality and quantity of artificially flooded habitats for wetland-dependent wildlife, increasing diversity of wetland types, and maintaining and improving habitat quality and quantity of botttomland forest within the project area.

What are Habitat Rehabilitation and Enhancement Projects?
These projects are a component of the Upper Mississippi River System Environmental Management Program, which was created by Congress in 1986 as a means to balance commercial navigation with environmental and recreational objectives. There are nineteen habitat rehabilitation and enhancement projects within the St. Louis region. As part of the Environmental Management Program, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in cooperation with our federal and state-level partners, identifies areas in need of habitat improvement. Once an area has been identified, the Corps of Engineers and its partners use experimental designs to improve the quality and quantity of aquatic and wetland-dependant wildlife. These experimental projects do not receive the same stringent standards that a flood control levee or reservoir would receive. This is done to keep costs at a minimum, which frees more money to spread around to complete further habitat construction. Because the experimental designs do not always perform as intended, the Corps of Engineers anticipates the need to monitor and, if necessary, modify these designs.