Fast currents and high water continued to complicate commercial barge traffic on the Mississippi, Arkansas, and Ohio rivers last week, but sources said some maintenance-related lock closures on the Mississippi River could present an additional logistics hurdle if the repair periods extend into the spring application season.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on March 26 issued a notice that Lock No. 25 on the upper Mississippi River at mile 241.4 would close immediately due to the “degraded condition of the lower miter gate intermediate wall anchorage and the risk of complete gate failure.”
Sources said the pins holding the lower gate to the wall at Lock No. 25 are working loose, and the Corps was deploying a Hercules from its service base in St. Louis to address the problem. An earlier notice said the repair crew and the Hercules would be on site by March 31, with an estimated closure of a full 8 days while repairs are completed.
The notice follows an earlier announcement that Lock No. 19 at mile 364.3 on the upper Mississippi would be partially closed to commercial barge traffic in mid-April for repairs involving the installation of an upper service gate and new controls for the upper service and guard gates. The closure at that location will be in effect from 7 a.m. till 7 p.m. from April 15-20, with movement allowed through the Lock during the hours when work is not underway.
One source noted the Corps is “very careful about its estimates,” and is unlikely to keep the Locks closed for longer-than-expected periods “because they don’t want people crawling down their necks.”
While continued rain delays have kept growers out of the field throughout the Midwest in recent weeks, fertilizer dealers and distributors are anticipating a frenzied application pace once the spring season begins in earnest. Depending on the level of activity underway during and before these scheduled repairs, one industry source said the closures “could be a major deal” if the supply chain interruptions result in terminal outages and widespread supply shortages.
On the Arkansas River, the combination of torrential rains and heavy reservoir releases has created an extremely fast current. As a result commercial traffic remains mostly idled along the McClellan-Kerr Navigation System, which runs 445 miles from the Mississippi River to the port of Catoosa, Okla. Normal flows for the river at this time of the year are about 30,000 cubic feet per second, but news reports said the river was surging at almost 300,000 cfs in the days immediately after the heavy precipitation that brought widespread flooding to Arkansas.
According to local reports, bigger tow boats are being kept off the Arkansas River until it slows to about 150,000 cfs, while smaller boats must wait for a current of 100,000 cfs. A Corps spokesman was quoted on March 25 as saying that the river was running at about 150,000 cfs near the start of the system in Oklahoma and at about 235,000 near the end where it empties into the Mississippi River. The Corps said the whole river should be at about 150,000 cfs by April 3, barring any additional rains. Even when movement picks up on the river, however, the faster flows will likely force commercial operators to tow fewer barges.
High water on the Arkansas last year, coupled with a 19-day shutdown at Lock No. 9 near Morrilton, Ark., resulted in a 37 percent reduction in barge traffic from May through July.
On the Missouri River, the Corps last week went ahead with a 48-hour release from Gavins Point Dam in South Dakota despite protests from Missouri officials that the release could exacerbate flooding concerns in the state. The Corps countered the Gavins Point release by stopping releases into the Missouri River below Kansas City, and by holding back releases from tributary dams in the lower Missouri on March 26.
Ohio River levels were falling last week after the prior week’s surge. The Ohio stood at just below the flood stage of 23 feet at McAlpine Locks and Dam near Louisville, Ky., on Mar. 23. The river crested there on Mar. 21, about three feet above flood stage. River levels at Marietta, Ohio, rose to about 33 feet on March 20 at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum rivers, which was just under the 35-foot flood stage. Marietta levels had receded to under 21 feet by March 27.
With all that water flushing into the Mississippi, the lower Mississippi River level continued to rise last week, with expectations that it would reach flood stage of 43 feet at Vicksburg, Miss., by the weekend. Barring any additional near-term weather events, the river is expected to crest at 16.5 feet in New Orleans during early April, just six inches below the official flood stage. The high water isn’t expected to trigger the opening of the Bonnet Carre Spillway, however, according to reports at midweek.
As of March 26, the lower Mississippi River level at the Carrollton gauge in New Orleans registered 12.4 feet. Once the river reaches 17 feet flood stage there, the Corps takes control of all levees from the local districts.
The Corps currently operates 257 locks on more than 12,000 miles of inland waterways.