By Dave Gambrel
The drought has riveted the interest of river shippers, carriers and managers for the last six months or more. In late summer the Corps of Engineers’ focus was dredging the river near Greenville, Miss. More recently it has been the need to dredge rock pinnacles in the St. Louis-to-Cairo reach, specifically in the areas near Thebes, Ill., and Grand Tower, Ill. While rock pinnacles may seem like a new problem, the Corps has been working on them for years. Their problem is they have to wait for water levels to get low enough to allow them to work. We have been focusing on the Mississippi River for at least a year-and-a-half, first with floods and now with low water. These are rough times for the barge industry and for the U.S. Corps of Engineers.
For the Corps it is more complicated than simply hiring a company to do the dredging and managing their work. It is a juggling act of making sure there is enough water in certain pools, which may require releasing water from reservoirs such as Carlyle Lake, or beseeching Congress to allow more releases from Upper Missouri River reservoirs. For the barge companies it is making sure enough barges are provided to satisfy customer tonnage needs, even though they may have to use more towing power to haul that tonnage. One hard rainfall can make it seem like their problems are all over, but it takes more water than that to return the river to normal. Coal shippers may feel frustrated if their shipments are delayed, but lots of people are working hard to keep the river system running.
The Drought
The Dust Bowl of the 1930s lasted about a decade. Its primary area of impact was on the southern Plains. The northern Plains were not so badly affected, but nonetheless, the drought, windblown dust and agricultural decline were no strangers to the north. In Figure 1, the area shown in brown would have covered the Dust Bowl, which was centered in western Kansas and eastern Colorado under the map word “Persistence.” The current drought is expected to last at least until the end of April 2013.
For the Corps of Engineers and the barge industry the Drought Outlook map seems to offer some hope. Many of the states (Minnesota, North Dakota, Iowa and Illinois) that feed the Upper Mississippi and Missouri rivers are projected to see improving conditions. Unfortunately, many of the states (Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Colorado) that produce agricultural crops are projected to see persistent drought conditions through April and perhaps beyond. The Missouri River is the primary source of water in the St. Louis-to-Cairo reach.
By next fall we could have a situation in which the Mississippi River has returned to normal navigational depths, but crop production to ship on the river has not. How is that likely to affect coal rates? If hopper barges are not needed for grain haulage, we are likely to see them competing for coal haulage business. The main difference between coal and grain barges is the fact that grain barges are covered, a fact that makes little difference to utility plants that are primarily interested in the lowest rate per ton.
There is another factor that could have a depressing effect on barge rates, one that has nothing to do with river levels. Some electric utilities have already announced their intention to close some of their power units and replace them with gas-fired units. This would free up that portion of the barge fleet that currently hauls coal to those plants that would close. Again, it would be a supply/demand effect in which there is likely to be a greater supply of hopper barges than the demand for them, and this could depress the price of barge freight.
| Table 1: Projected Economic Impact of Two-month River Closure in St. Louis Cairo Reach | |||
| Commodity, Upbound and Downbound Combined | Tonnage (Thousands) |
Value ($/Tons) |
Total ($Million) |
| Coal, Lignite & Coal Coke | 3,840 | 50 | 192 |
| Petroleum & Petroleum Products except Crude Oil | 1,333 | 1,000 | 1,333 |
| Crude Oil | 712 | 750 | 534 |
| Chemicals and Related Products | 1,705 | 1,100 | 1,875 |
| Crude Materials, Inedible except Fuel | 1,582 | 150 | 237 |
| Primary Manufactured Goods | 608 | 1,000 | 608 |
| Food and Farm Products | 7,793 | 300 | 2,338 |
| All Manufactured Equipment, Machinery & Products | 50 | 1,200 | 60 |
| Total | 17,623 | 7,177 | |
Projected Economic Effects
The drought has caused significant concern that the Corps would not be able to maintain the 9 ft minimum depth navigation channel in the Mississippi River between St. Louis and Cairo in December 2012 and January 2013. To assess the potential economic impact of a two-month closure American Waterways Operators and the Waterways Council hired Navigistics Consulting to prepare a study of the expected impacts. Highlights of the Navigistics report include:
- 5 million barrels of domestically produced crude oil would be replaced by imported crude oil—costing $545 million additional imports ($109/bbl)
- Approximately 300 million bushels of agricultural products would be delayed reaching market—representing $2.3 billion product value
- 3.8 million tons of coal would be shut in—valued at $192 million
To summarize, cargo valued at more than $7 billion would stop moving if the Mississippi River were closed due to low water between St. Louis and Cairo. While at least 10 states would be impacted, the three states most impacted would be Illinois, Louisiana and Missouri.
Nearly 20,000 jobs and more than $130 million in wages and benefits would be impacted. Since none of this has happened yet, it may seem a bit like “sky is falling” predictions. The Corps has made significant progress on removing the rock pinnacles, so it may not be likely that a river closure would last for two months.
Rock Pinnacles at Thebes and Grand Tower
A 3-D map of the river bottom shows a strange and disturbing rock structure that exists near Thebes and Grand Tower. Referred to as rock pinnacles, these structures do not appear as a threat to navigation when the river gage is running at normal levels. However, if there is less than 10 ft of water over the pinnacles, they become a hazard to barge traffic. The Corps is charged with the responsibility of maintaining a 300-ft wide channel that is 9 ft deep, but they cannot manage water when it is not available. Based on the National Weather Service forecast, low Mississippi River stages were forecast to impact the St. Louis Districts’ ability to maintain the navigation channel at authorized project dimensions, especially in the Thebes Reach in the mid-December 2012 timeframe. As Figure 2 shows, this would have narrowed the channel to 150 ft near the bend. Less than a mile downstream the channel is a little wider (170 ft), but the rock dangers are so much greater.
Construction companies hired to remove rock pinnacles from the river have used a number of different methods: (1) backhoe on barge; (2) drilling and blasting; and (3) hydro-hammer. Oddly enough, they cannot work when the water gets too deep, and recent rains have caused a cessation of work. The higher water that is good news to the barge companies is a delaying factor for the Corps’ rock removal effort. The first rock removal contract used drilling and blasting technology, and was done in 1988 and 1989. It took advantage of low water (-4.2 St. Louis gage). The Coast Guard closed the channel for 30 days at Thebes, but the work was not completed.
There is no doubt that navigation problems in the St. Louis-to-Cairo reach seriously affect grain haulage from the Illinois Waterway and the Twin Cities. Some may argue that coal is not so seriously affected, but that is not true. Coal docks on the Mississippi River include Cora, Kellogg, Cahokia, Hall Street (St. Louis); the Illinois River has the Havana Dock. All would argue they would be seriously affected.
Temporary Problems at Lock and Dam 27
Lock and Dam 27 consists two locks. The main lock is 1,200 ft long; the smaller auxiliary lock is 600 ft long. On Jan. 22, the main lock was already closed for repairs. At about 0500 the operator was raising the auxiliary chamber with the first cut of the MV CAPT W.D. Nunley. As the chamber was filling there was apparently enough slack in the lines to allow the front barges to get up under the nap section of the downstream lift gate. [The nap section is the “lip” that goes across the top of the gate.] The rising barges caused the gate to be raised out of the water and become skewed in the slot. It could become a serious problem if the lock operator had not noticed and acted quickly.
The operator almost immediately took action to lower the chamber water level. However, this is a slow process. There is a culvert on both sides of the lock used to fill the chamber. Each culvert is 12 ft x 12 ft so there is a lot of water rushing into the chamber. To reverse the process the operator had to first close the large valves on the upstream end of this culvert. These valves are operated through motor gear driven machinery and take several minutes to close; meanwhile the chamber continued to fill after these valves were closed (by then the gate was high enough that it no longer “overlapped” with the seal on the other gate and the chamber continued to fill from water leaking between the two gate leaves).
Next the operator opened the lower valves, which took just as long, and began to drain the chamber. Eventually the barges lowered, but the gate remained wedged in its slot with significant slack in the hoisting chains. The maintenance crew immediately began running the gate machinery to take out the slack, and the gate dropped about 2.5 ft with the chains stopping it. This kind of shock to the mechanical system required complete inspection of the chains, connections, and hoisting sprockets as well as the gate itself. Fortunately, the Corps found only minor damage, which they were able to repair in less than 24 hours. A section of the seal required 48 hours for parts, but Corps engineers made the decision the lock could be safely operated, and the seal was repaired two days later after backed-up tows were allowed through. Operations resumed at 2000 hours on Jan. 23.
Dave Gambrel is a coal consultant and writer. The former director of transportation for Peabody Energy, his background includes coal terminals and all modes of transportation in the U.S. and abroad. He may be reached at bunkgambrel@earthlink.net.
