Armchair river-watchers in Vicksburg predict the Mississippi River with ease, but on Wednesday the highest of top brass at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Vicksburg District confirmed this winter’s mountain of snow in the Northeast aren’t a cause for worry those who live along the Lower Mississippi River system.

“What we’re hearing with the river stages, it’s a pretty low probability of any flooding,” Col. John W. Cross said during an address to the Vicksburg Lions Club. “The river is below normal, and so when it’s below normal, it has capacity. If it was up real high, we’d certainly be more concerned.”

Stages along the river at Vicksburg stood just above 24 feet Thursday, far below the flood stage of 43 feet. Spring rainfall totals in the Ohio River Valley, which were between 600 percent and 1,000 percent above normal in the run-up to the record Mississippi River Flood of 2011, are the bellwether for the river’s behavior between St. Louis and the Gulf of Mexico.

“Since it’s lower, it has more capacity for rain events upstream,” Cross said. “I can’t predict what’s going to be right now.”

Cross, district commander since March 2013, said one on again, off again flood control concept, the Yazoo Backwater pump project, is the subject of review.

Last fall, Cross said, former Mississippi Valley Division commander Brig. Gen. Peter DeLuca wrote a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency asking for another review for the pump project, first authorized by Congress in 1941 and modified several times since then.

In 2008, the EPA vetoed the most recent pump plan from the larger flood protection model for the Yazoo Backwater Area, citing the threat of harmful effects on wetlands, farmland and forests north of Vicksburg during high water. It had a pump station being built near the Steele Bayou Control Structure off Mississippi 465 north of Vicksburg.

“It’s a key part of flood protection in the Delta,” Cross said, adding a letter was also sent to the environmental agency from U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran’s office.

Cross didn’t rule out changes to the timing when key floodways such as the Morganza Floodway and Bonnet Carre Spillway are opened downriver in south Louisiana if the pumps are ever built. Each functions as a way to divert water from the Mississippi to the Atchafalaya River basin during flood conditions.

A palpable move toward using larger containers on the river comprised other parts of Cross’ presentation to Lions members. Cross cited an 18 percent increase in U.S. hydrocarbon production in 2014 and the nation becoming the world’s top producer of natural gas last year. Also, Cross said, the equivalent cargo of 870 big rigs on the highway can fit onto a single 15-barge tow.

“We’re getting ready to export gas in the United States because we’ve had so much fracking and things like that,” Cross said.