Torrential rains brought widespread flooding to the Midwest last week, imperiling vast areas of cropland and prompting the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to close more than 216 miles of the upper Mississippi River to barge traffic.
The river closure, announced by the Corps early in the week but not implemented until Thursday, includes a total of nine locks above St. Louis, Mo. The first to close on Thursday was Lock 16 in Illinois City, Ill., and the last will be Lock 25 in Winfield, Mo., on June 17. The locks will remain closed for at least 10 days, and possibly until early July. The Corps said it was taking the step to remove and store electric motors at each site that are used to move lock gates and control valves.
The lock closure schedule, released on Wednesday, confirmed that Lock 16 in Illinois City, Lock 17 in New Boston, Ill., and Lock 18 in Gladstone, Ill., would shut down on June 12. Lock 20 at Canton, Mo., was scheduled to close on June 13, followed by June 14 closures at Lock 19 at Keokuk, Iowa, Lock 21 at Quincy, Ill., and Lock 22 at Saverton, Mo. Lock 24 at Clarksville, Mo., was scheduled to close on June 16, with the final closure of Lock 25 at Winfield on June 17.
In addition to the Mississippi, news reports said many locations along the Missouri and Illinois rivers, along with numerous tributaries, were well above flood stage as the week advanced. Heavy rains in Oklahoma earlier in the week brought barge traffic on the Arkansas River to a halt as well due to high water and fast currents.
Perhaps the most striking images came from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where evacuations were ordered after an earthen levee gave way on Thursday following an overnight downpour that dropped an additional five inches of rain on the already-saturated area. With nine Iowa rivers at or above historic flood levels by midweek, Iowa Governor Chet Culver declared 53 of the state’s 99 counties as disaster areas.
“We are in the middle of a historic flood event in the Upper Mississippi Valley,” said meteorologist Bill Karins on Thursday. “Most major Iowa rivers are cresting at all-time record levels, and this water will soon raise the Mississippi River to its second highest levels in recorded history north of St. Louis.” Local press reports quoted Karins as saying several locations would reach 100-200 year flood crests, and “thousands upon thousands of acres of farmland will be flooded for weeks, with incredible crop losses.”
On Wednesday, the National Weather Service released a number of crest predictions for the Mississippi. The predictions for June 15-21 ranged from eight to nearly 12 feet above flood stage at numerous locations in Illinois and Missouri, and preceded the torrential rains that inundated the Upper Mississippi Basin on Wednesday night. Some Midwest sources contacted by Green Markets on Thursday said the flood levels could surpass the records set in 1993.
The lock closures will undoubtedly affect the movement of fertilizer, but the biggest threat to agriculture last week was the vast tracts of farmland that were already under water or would likely be flooded as river levels continue to climb and the flood surge moved south.
“I’m telling you, the crops didn’t look good,” said one Iowa source, who traveled a 400-mile stretch of the state early in the week and observed extensive ponding and washing in fields. “It’s hard to say how much [corn] acreage has been taken out, but rumors are that the national acreage could be knocked back to 83 million acres, and on top of that they’ll have a below-trend line yield,” he told Green Markets.
USDA in its weekly crop report on June 10 lowered the nation’s corn production estimate to 11.7 billion bushels, down 10 percent from last year’s crop. The report cut the corn yield estimate to 148.9 bushels/acre, down five bushels, or 3.2 percent, from May’s estimate of 153.9 bu/a. The planted acreage estimate for corn remained unchanged at 86 million acres, but the report was based on information compiled before last week’s devastating rains and floods.
The lower crop estimates, coupled with last week’s weather events, caused a surge in crop prices. Corn futures for July delivery rose 5.75 cents to $7.09 a bushel on June 12. One day earlier, corn futures rose 30 cents to close above $7 for the first time, hitting a record for the fifth straight trading day on the Chicago Board of Trade. Tuesday’s corn futures price closed at $6.7325 a bushel. Contracts for corn deliveries after July have already hit levels soaring above $7.25 a bushel.
The Midwest flooding has also pushed soybean prices to record levels. Soybeans for July delivery rose 70 cents to settle at $15.165 a bushel on the CBOT on Wednesday, followed by a 20 cent increase on Thursday to $15.36 a bushel. One Iowa report last week estimated that flooding and severe storms have killed about 10 percent of the soybean crop there.