The City of West Memphis, Arkansas owns a port located along the Mississippi River designed to support industrial transport and commerce in the region (oil and gas, fertilizer, construction, agriculture). Due to site specific hydrodynamics and resulting stream bank migration, conditions have become very difficult and even dangerous for barge operators to navigate into and out of the port above a river flow of 900,000 cfs. During the years 2020 and 2021 the port was closed more than six months each year which significantly impacts the economy of West Memphis. A planning study including numerical modeling investigated the underlying cause of the dangerous docking conditions and recommend short and long term solutions. A component of the technical evaluation of interest to practitioners is how best to use the available state-of-the-art technology to solve this complex problem with limited time and resources. ADCP data were available from the river project area to validate a depth-averaged 2D model as well as a CFD model applied to the problem. The results are presented and discussed within the context of practical infrastructure decision making. Insight into how well each model performs as well as understanding limitations associated with each solution scheme and how it impacts potential design decisions was gained. This study has leveraged available state of the art technology to solve a practical problem in very complex conditions.
