VIDALIA — As the Mississippi River continues to rise into near record levels in the coming weeks, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will be working to stabilize a stretch of problematic levee south of Vidalia.

In anticipation of flooding, the Corps worked Thursday at Union Point, approximately 10 miles north of the Sidney A. Murray Jr. Hydroelectric station.

The levee at Union Point and for a stretch of miles surrounding the area off Louisiana 15 has experienced complications many times before, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers River Operations Branch Chief Jimmy Coldiron said.

“This area all the way from here for a few miles up has always been a problem for the levee, because they’ve had numerous (sand) boils in it over the years,” Coldiron said.

A surveyor reported this particular section last week as being active, Coldiron said, meaning that a sand boil had caused some water to seep beneath the levee.

“We know that it’s flowing, because it’s bringing up a small amount of material,” Coldiron said.

A sand boil occurs when pressure from a river forces water beneath a levee, which shifts the soil and forms a hole.

To counteract the activity caused by high pressure, Coldiron said workers must place additional sand on top of the sand boil to both create a filter and add some weight to equalize the water pressure.

Crews first began work at this section of the levee Saturday.

Though he said the current crest forecast for the Mississippi River — estimated Thursday to reach 57 feet on March 19 at the Natchez gauge — should not constitute a potentially disastrous scenario, Coldiron said the measures his crew is taking are precautionary rather than reactive.

“They’re not so much concerned about this particular high-water event that we’re in right now, but if (the water) were not to get on out of here and we got some more rainfall from the upper basin and we got even higher levels, that’s when it becomes more of a problem,” Coldiron said.

“So what we’re doing is we’re being proactive and trying to stay ahead of a situation before it develops. We’re not in a disaster or anything like that, we’re just doing preventive measures to make sure we don’t get to that point.”

Coldiron said the current project is not utilizing any emergency funds.

Both Coldiron and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Vicksburg Public Affairs Chief Greg Raimondo said the Corps would eventually implement a more permanent solution to prevent these types of occurrences at Union Point and the surrounding area.

“We’re going to put in this precautionary measure and later we’ll put in a permanent fix,” Raimondo said.

Coldiron said he hopes to complete the work 11 days from today.