Mayors Push For National Drought Resilience 

Mayors of the Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative (MRCTI) gathered last week with federal officials and industry leaders to take stock of drought impacts unfolding in the Mississippi River corridor and announce policy proposals that they say can equip the nation with better drought resilience and response. They announced their policy recommendations November 1 in a virtual press event. 

After enduring one of the hottest summers on record and months of dry conditions, Midwestern states are in the throes of a 30-year drought in which all 10 Mississippi River states are sustaining extreme to severe drought conditions. Multiple economies are feeling the effects of low water along the Mississippi River, including the global commodity supply chain, manufacturing, tourism and agriculture. 

While barge cargoes are continuing to move, thanks to the coordinated efforts of the Corps of Engineers, Coast Guard and barge industry, barge volumes are down by about 40 percent as vessels must reduce tow sizes and barges are forced to light-load. 

Colin Wellenkamp, executive director of MRCTI, introduced speakers at the virtual event, posing in front of the Lewis and Clark statue on the St. Louis riverfront—which was almost completely engulfed by water in the flooding of 2011. The river now is more than 40 feet below those levels, he said.

Hot Spot Cleared

Lt. Philip VanderWeit, public affairs officer for the Eighth Coast Guard District, which covers the Mississippi River basin, said barge traffic reopened November 1 after dredging at Mile 525, near Greenville, Miss., allowing a queue of 50 towboats pushing 500 barges to move southbound. Another 50 vessels and 500 barges were waiting to go northbound. VanderWeit said tow size and barge load-line restrictions are in place from Mile 303 through Mile 869. Northbound tows can be no wider than five barges and must have a 9-foot draft, and southbound tows are restricted to a 9-foot, 6-inches draft and can also be only five barges wide.

In its newsletter Currents, American Commercial Barge Line said ACBL liquid drafts were reduced to 8 feet, 6 inches as of October 17, reflecting approximately a 17 percent reduction to tons per barge versus normal conditions.

“My area of the Mississippi has the driest conditions in the corridor with extreme drought covering the three-corners region of Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky,” said Stacy Kinder, mayor of Cape Girardeau, Mo. “Agriculture is a significant portion of our economy. The Mississippi River moves over $164 billion in agriculture exports annually. This drought is affecting 40 percent of that revenue at one of the most important times of the year.”

The drought is having other effects as well. Kinder said a recent water-main rupture that affected the entire city was the result of pipes shifting underground as a result of abnormally dry soil.

Frank Klipsch, the former mayor of Davenport, Iowa, who joined American Cruise Lines in 2020 as director of city partnerships and special projects, said that while his company has had to reroute some cruises due to the low water, it has not yet had to cancel any cruises. “We are committed to maintaining our schedules, and we need partnerships to do that,” he said. American Cruise Line boats are designed to handle both floods and low water, he said, “although there comes a point where nothing can pass.”

Barge Rates

Paul Rohde, Midwest vice president of Waterways Council Inc., said barge rates from St. Louis to New Orleans were currently 384 percent higher than at this time last year, and 439 percent higher than the five-year average. It cost $100 to bring a ton of corn or soybeans from St. Louis to New Orleans—double the rate of one month ago. “I can see trouble getting fertilizer north for farmers” if the situation doesn’t improve, he said.

Rohde, other members of the WCI and other towing industry representatives, including American Waterways Operators president and CEO Jennifer Carpenter, had a White House meeting with President Joe Biden and other top officials to assess responses to the low water and drought. 

Rohde noted that, later this month, the Missouri River will close its reservoirs, and the Mississippi River will lose another 2 feet of water at the confluence with the Missouri River, which will translate to a loss of perhaps a foot of water at Cairo, Ill. 

When one questioner asked how far the Mississippi River was from a situation of no movement, VanderWeit said barges are still moving, even if reduced in size and load. “We have 9 feet of water right now, more in certain areas, so we are not at the point of no return yet!” Rohde said the barge industry is used to operating with at least 12 feet on the Lower Mississippi River; volume reductions are about 40 percent, perhaps 50 percent in some areas.

Wellenkamp noted that after the 2012 low water, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce released a report in 2013 showing that each of the three closures of the Mississippi River at that time cost about $300 million a day. There have been five closures of the river so far this fall. 

Rain Prospects   

Dennis Todey, director of the Midwest Climate Hub in Ames, Iowa, spoke on weather and rain prospects over the next few months. He shared drought maps showing the drought that has covered much of the West and Midwest, in some areas for the past year or longer. All rivers feeding the Mississippi River are way below five-year averages for flows. 

Todey also displayed forecast charts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showing the chances for precipitation as at least even across a broad swath of the middle of the country, and better than average in the Pacific Northwest, including the Missouri River drainage basin. Because soils are so dry, it will take much more than one good rainstorm to provide relief, he said. “The upper plains has less chance for recovery as the season progresses” if there is no substantial precipitation before winter sets in, he said. 

Droughts Vs. Floods

“In my 30-year career in downtown Memphis, I’ve never seen the river this low before,” said Jim Strickland, mayor of Memphis, Tenn., and MRCTI co-chair. “We’re now more than 14 feet below low water stage on the Mississippi here in Memphis. Low water can have a greater cost than high water. Yet we have all these tools at our disposal for floods, and few for droughts.” 

“Droughts are hazard multipliers,” said Errick Simmons, mayor of Greenville, Miss., and co-chair of MRCTI. “We actually dread droughts more than floods because the impacts of drought are usually longer lasting, affect more of the economy and set us up for more damaging results from future storms.”

“If your community is like mine, where outdoor recreation and tourism comprise over 80 percent of your economy, the cruise ship industry is crucial,” said Phil Stang, mayor of Kimmswick, Mo., and MRCTI Missouri state chair. “Right now, we can’t host cruise vessels due to low water. Floods I can manage; but in drought, everyone loses.”

National Drought Policy Proposals

The Mississippi River mayors announced their policy proposals to equip the U.S. with a national drought policy, which they said the country currently does not have. Although there has been much progress in developing the science and monitoring of drought, the mayors said, there has been little movement in achieving drought resilience.

Mayors outlined seven national drought policy proposals they hope the federal National Drought Resilience Partnership will consider immediately.  

1) Award federal disaster declarations to states for drought;

2) Allow cities to spend FEMA funds addressing drought impacts;

3) Make drought mitigation a spending priority for Jobs Act grants;

4) Develop national incentives for manufacturers to build out water recycling facilities;

5) Allow for more adaptive multi-watershed management so river systems can be managed at basin scale to mitigate climate impacts;

6) Allow farmers and landowners to be compensated for voluntarily rotating acreage out of irrigation to alleviate drought; and

7) Make agricultural credits for climate mitigation available under Title II, Subtitle C of the Inflation Reduction Act available for drought resilience activities.

Regarding the fifth proposal, on coordinating basin management, Rohde noted that the six reservoirs in the Missouri River system are managed for navigation as one authorized purpose as well as flood control and irrigation. Asked about the effects of the low water and barge jams on consumer prices, Rohde said direct effects are “upstream” of consumer prices. “What barges carry is mostly stuff that makes other stuff,” he said. “It will definitely have price effects, depending on the length and severity of the low water.” Rohde did acknowledge that the low water of 2012 did see meat and dairy prices spike in grocery stores, at least partly because of supply chain issues. 

Rohde also pointed out the lessons learned by the Corps and industry since the extreme low-water events of 1988. Back then, tows were restricted to 16 barges southbound, as opposed to 25 barges this time around so far.

Caption for photo: Low water near Memphis, Tenn. (Photo courtesy of American Commercial Barge Line)