The Mississippi River's water level is dropping again and barge industry trade groups warn that river commerce could essentially come to a halt by mid-January. Ice on the northern section of the Mississippi is reducing flow more than expected.
The Coast Guard remains confident that the nation's largest waterway will remain open despite the worst drought in decades.
But even if the Mississippi remains technically open, Deborah Colbert of theWaterways Council, a barge industry trade group, says further load limits will make shipping unviable by mid-January.
“The impacts have already been felt,” Colbert said. “Export orders plummeting, other orders are being curtailed or cancelled altogether, companies are considering layoffs. And so again, January 15th is D-Day.”
After that point, without more rain officials with the barge industry say millions of tons of agricultural products, chemicals, coal and petroleum will be held up.
Ed Ide from Consolidated Grain and Barge in Cahokia, Illinois says his company has been expecting a shutdown for some time.
“We fully expect the river to have a time when we can’t move cargo up and down past St. Louis and so we’ve brought in our contracts early, loaded them out already and sent them to the gulf,” Ide said.
Colbert says barge traffic is currently restricted to only one direction in certain spots.
The latest forecast from the National Weather Service has the river level at St. Louis dropping to a record low by the 16th.
The Army Corps says emergency dredging and rock near Cape Girardeau is expected to continue until the end of January.