67,000 cubic feet per second (1,900 m3/s) Min: 9,959 cubic feet per second (282.0 m3/s) Max: 318,468 cubic feet per second (9,018.0 m3/s)[1] Sediment Discharge: 4.5 million tons/year[2] 12,300 tons sediment/day (average)
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 square miles (110,000 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 miles (80 km) northeast of
Mobile, along the county line between
Mobile and
Baldwin counties. The combined stream flows south, in a winding course. Approximately 6 miles (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 miles (3 to 8 km) as they flow southward. The Mobile River flows through the
Mobile-Tensaw River Delta and 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).[3]
The
James M. Barry Electric Generating Plant, owned by
Alabama Power, has a leaking unlined
Fly ash pit located "on land that lies within a hairpin crook of the Mobile River."[4] For this reason the river has been described as the third most endangered river in the United States.[5]
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.
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.
^"River Plume Productivity" (short title), Institute for Marine Remote Sensing (IMaRS), Oceanic Atlas of the Gulf of Mexico, 2001-10-04, web:
USF-edu-RPlumeProdArchived 2006-09-02 at the
Wayback Machine.
^"River Discharge to the Coastal Ocean: A Global Synthesis", John D. Milliman and Katherine L. Farnsworth, 2011, Cambridge University Press.