Mobile River

Mobile River
Map of the Mobile River Basin
Origin	Tombigbee and Alabama River
Mouth	Mobile Bay
Basin countries	United States
Length	72 km (45 mi)
Source elevation	225 m (738 ft)
Avg. discharge	282 to 9,018 m³/s (? ft³/s) [summer to spring] [1]
Basin area	115,000 km² (44,000 mi²)

Aerial view of the Mobile River at its confluence with Chickasaw Creek, about 5 miles (8 km) above Mobile Bay. This photograph was taken about 1990 during construction of the Cochrane-Africatown bridge carrying U.S. Route 90 across the river. The bridge piers and construction crane are visible in the picture.

Map showing the course of the Mobile, Alabama, and Coosa rivers

The Mobile River is located in southern Alabama in the United States. Formed out of the confluence of the Tombigbee and Alabama rivers, the approximately 45-mile-long (72 km) river drains an area of 44,000 sq mi (115,000 km²) of Alabama, with a watershed extending into Mississippi, Georgia, and Tennessee. Its drainage basin is the fourth-largest of primary stream drainage basins entirely in the United States. The river has historically provided the principal navigational access for Alabama. Since construction of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, it also provides an alternative route into the Ohio River watershed.

The Tombigbee and Alabama River join to form the Mobile River approximately 50 mi (80 km) NNE of Mobile, along the county line between Mobile and Baldwin counties. The combined stream flows south, in a winding course. Approximately 6 mi (10 km) downstream from the confluence, the channel of the river divides, with the Mobile flowing along the western channel. The Tensaw River, a bayou of the Mobile River, flows alongside to the east, separated from 2 to 5 mi (3 to 8 km) as they flow southward. The Mobile River reaches Mobile Bay on the Gulf of Mexico just east of downtown Mobile.

Biodiversity

The Mobile River Basin historically supported the greatest biodiversity of freshwater snail species in the world (Bogan et al. 1995), including six genera and over 100 species that were endemic to the Mobile River Basin. During the past few decades, publications in the scientific literature have primarily dealt with the apparent decimation of this fauna following the construction of dams within the Mobile River Basin and the inundation of extensive shoal (a shallow place in a body of water) habitats by impounded waters (Goodrich 1944, Athearn 1970, Heard 1970, Stein 1976, Palmer 1986, Garner 1990).^[2]

Crossings

This is a list of bridges and other crossings of the Mobile River from Mobile Bay upstream to its source at the confluence of the Tombigbee and Alabama rivers. Proposals for a new bridge to carry Interstate 10 over the river have been debated for several years. Currently the Alabama Department of Transportation is conducting an environmental impact study for such a crossing and into the widening of the Jubilee Parkway, which carries Interstate 10 over Mobile Bay. The location of this bridge is of great debate with some parties pushing for a crossing south of the current tunnels while others are opposed to anything south of the Cochrane-Africatown USA Bridge.

Crossing	Carries	Location	Coordinates
George Wallace Tunnel	Interstate 10	Mobile
Bankhead Tunnel	U.S. Route 90 U.S. Route 98
Cochrane-Africatown USA Bridge	U.S. Route 90 U.S. Route 98
14-Mile Bridge	CSX
General W.K. Wilson Jr. Bridge	Interstate 65

See also

• List of Alabama rivers

References

This article incorporates public domain text (a public domainwork of the United States Government) from the reference ^[2].

External links

• USGS: Mobile River Basin
• University of Alabama: Mobile River System
• Mobile River Terminal
• USGS GNIS: Mobile River

Coordinates: 30°39′22″N 88°1′52″W / 30.65611°N 88.03111°W / 30.65611; -88.03111