Corps confident it can keep Mississippi open

ST. LOUIS – Efforts taken to keep a crucial stretch of the drought-starved Mississippi River open to barge traffic should be sufficient to avert a shipping shutdown that the industry fears is imminent, Army Corps of Engineers and Coast Guard officials said Friday.

The corps said crews in recent weeks have made “fantastic” progress clearing treacherous bedrock from a channel about 150 miles south of St. Louis near Thebes, Ill. – the portion of the river that has grown especially worrisome to barge operators moving an array of cargo to northern states and south to the Gulf of Mexico.

Shipping groups warned this week that the waterway there could drop to a point – 3 feet on the river gauge – in which barge weight restrictions would have to be further tightened, effectively halting shipping.

National Weather Service hydrologists, as of Friday, forecast that the river at Thebes could drop to the 3-feet mark by next Thursday and continue falling to 1 foot by the end of this month.

“The uncertainty of this deteriorating situation for the nation’s shippers is having as much of an impact as the lack of water itself,” said Michael Toohey, president and chief executive of the Waterways Council Inc., which along with the American Waterways Operators group considers the situation dire.

Coast Guard Lt. Colin Fogarty said Friday it’s possible that new draft restrictions may be considered by the middle of the month, but he believes the Army Corps’ progress should make that unlikely.

As the barge industry submits, “we are absolutely facing very historic drought conditions,” Fogarty said. “But this is a long-term campaign, and we’ve won many of the battles. We all want to have the deepest, safest channel, and right now we’re accomplishing that.”