State Rep. Walls McCrary, D-Lonoke, stands on a barge that passed under the Interstate 30 bridge over the Arkansas River today. Lawmakers were told the narrow navigation passage under the bridge creates a hazard for barge traffic. (Rob Moritz photo)

LITTLE ROCK — The piers that hold up the Interstate 30 bridge over the Arkansas River are narrow and create a hazard to barges flowing up and down the river, lawmakers heard today.

“It’s a real problem,” Keith Garrison, executive director of the Arkansas Waterways Commission, told commissioners and members of two legislative committees who took a barge tour of the river between downtown Little Rock and the city’s port.

Describing the navigation passage underneath the span, which opened in 1961, Garrison said the distance between the piers is 169 feet, just 64 feet wider than a normal barge load — 105 feet wide — traveling up and down the river.

“It’s kind of scary when you’ve got a long barge, maybe a quarter of a mile long, trying to steer through there,” Garrison said.

The other bridges that span the river at Little Rock have navigation channels of 300 to 325 feet for barge traffic, he said.

Garrison urged members of the Senate Interim Committee on Transportation, Technology and Legislative Affairs and the House Interim Committee on Public Transportation to support a project to widen the navigation passage.

“At some point the state of Arkansas is going to be involved in rebuilding or renovating the I-30 bridge … and at that point we would like to see the piers fixed for the navigation channel.”

After the meeting, Rep. Ray Kidd, D-Jonesboro, acting chairman of the House panel, said he planned to ask state Highway Director Dan Flowers to attend a future meeting to discuss the issue.

“I think there is a need for it,” Kidd said.

Rep. Walls McCrary, D-Lonoke, agreed.

“It seems like to me it’s probably a matter of time … one of these (barges) is going to hit the interstate bridge,” McCrary said.

Randy Ort, spokesman for the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department, said later that Flowers would be willing to meet with lawmakers to discuss the problem, adding “We are aware of their concerns.”

During the two-hour barge trip, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials briefed lawmakers on their role in maintaining the waterway and the various locks and dams that stretch through Arkansas and Oklahoma.

James Firestone, director of operations for the Little Rock Port Authority, also discussed the port and its impact on the region’s economy.