Business

June 21, 2008

Flood strands 100-plus barges

Boats loaded with grain, cement, other products stuck on Mississippi.

BETSY TAYLOR Associated Press Writer

WINFIELD, Mo. — The flooding in the Midwest has brought freight traffic on the upper Mississippi to a standstill, stranding more than 100 barges loaded with grain, cement, scrap metal, fertilizer and other products while shippers wait for the water to drop on the Big Muddy.

“We’re basically experiencing total shutdown,” said Larry Daily, president of Alter Barge Line Inc. of Bettendorf, Iowa.

While the bottleneck is costing him and other barge operators tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue per day, June is a slow shipping period on the river compared with the late-summer harvest, the shutdown is expected to last only a few weeks, and it involves primarily non-perishable goods. So no major damage to the economy is expected.

Among the freight being held up: corn and soybeans headed downstream for New Orleans, where grain is loaded onto ships for export. Construction supplies and petroleum products headed upstream on the Mississippi are not getting through either.

Because of the high water, the Army Corps of Engineers has closed nine locks along the upper Mississippi since June 12. That has stopped all traffic through the locks along a 225-mile stretch between Illinois City, Ill., and Winfield, Mo., northwest of St. Louis.

The situation along the Mississippi in Missouri was improving Friday as government forecasters predicted crests sharply below 1993’s record levels. Several communities up and down the Mississippi were still inundated, however, including Lincoln County, Mo., where 300 to 350 homes were flooded after the water flowed over the levees.

The locks use huge electric motors to open and close gates and valves, floating the barges up and down to different levels of the river as they make their way up and down the river.

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