The drought that has engulfed the entire Northern Hemisphere for much of this year is catching up with the Mississippi River at the most anxious time for farmers—right at harvest season.
Tight barge supply has resulted in low grain barge volumes and high rates, according to the Grain Transportation Report released Sept. 29 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. For the week ending Sept. 24, year-to-date downbound grain volumes on the Mississippi River reached 23.9 million tons, 4% lower than the 5-year average and 10% lower than the same period last year.
Since the beginning of September, 1,890 grain barges have unloaded in New Orleans, about 39& fewer than the 5-year average. Similarly, barge freight rates have increased steadily since early August. As of Sept. 27, the St. Louis barge rate for export grain was a record 1,250% of tariff ($49.88 per ton), 95% higher than the 5-year average, and 58% higher than the same period last year.
According to Mike Clay, chief of hydraulics at the Memphis Engineer District, river levels in the Memphis District’s area of operations (between Cairo, Illinois and Friar’s Point, Mississippi, are, on average, below the “low-water reference plane,” meaning river levels are higher than that level 97% of the time. “Some areas are above that, some are below,” he told High Plains Journal.
So far there have been no reports of groundings in the channel. What’s more concerning, he said, is that the outlook for the entire basin remains extremely dry. The only rain is falling in eastern upper reaches of the Tennessee River and Ohio River, remnants of Hurricane Ian. But those amounts were not expected to have a significant effect on Lower Mississippi flows, Clay said.
Matt Young, navigation chief of the Memphis Engineer District, said that after a meeting of the Waterways Action Plan group on Sept. 29—a collaboration between industry, the Memphis District and the Coast Guard—that the Coast Guard was preparing to announce restrictions of tows to five barges wide, with drafts restricted to 9 feet, 6 inches, on Oct. 2. He said some barge operators may already be light loading voluntarily.
Water levels at the mouth of the Mississippi River are already low enough for saltwater to creep northward. Flows from the Missouri River, which contributes up to 45% of the Mississippi River’s flow normally, and more during droughts, are expected to drop by December.
Meanwhile, according to the grain report, Class I rail service is still struggling. Poor service in the first half of the year led to a two-day hearing in April at the Surface Transportation Board on urgent rail service issues. The railroads were required to provide detailed service recovery plans and weekly status updates to the STB. Since June, grain rail service has improved but challenges remain, and at the same time, grain carloads have been declining. It is unclear whether railroads have in fact improved their ability to handle grain demand, or whether the improved grain metrics only reflect less grain moving on the rail network.
David Murray can be reached at [email protected].
