Some companies expressed alarm at a proposal that would cut off a cargo shipping route, but others have accused the corps of exaggerating the costs.

The region will also become an increasingly important commercial shipping route.

A shipping route consists of one or several waterways.

Because the steady increase in world shipping may make it an economically viable project, speculation on a new shipping route has continued.

Early on, the river became an important industrial shipping route, with lead, iron, and timber being sent downstream by flatboat and shallow-draft steamboat.