MRC Holds Annual Low Water Tour

During an August 19 public meeting of the Mississippi River Commission in New Madrid, Mo., navigation interests warned about the likelihood of a third year in a row of extreme low water, expressed the need for enhanced communication and suggested a revision to the way freight tonnage is calculated through port statistical areas. It was the first of four public meetings held by the Mississippi River Commission this month.

The meetings are part of the MRC’s annual low-water inspection trip, held this year Aug. 19-23 in New Madrid, Mo., Memphis, Tenn., Lake Village, Ark., and Berwick, La. The New Madrid meeting originally had been scheduled for Cape Girardeau, Mo., but was moved because of low-water conditions and logistical constraints for the mv. Mississippi, on which the meetings are held.

Each meeting included remarks from Maj. Gen. Kimberly Peeples, commander of the Mississippi Valley Engineer Division, and an update from the commander of the local Corps district. Following their presentations, members of the public had an opportunity to present verbal and written testimony.

The MRC was established in 1879. Its seven members include officers from the Corps of Engineers and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and civilians, at least two of whom are civil engineers. Their duties include recommending policy and programs having to do with the flood control and navigation missions of the Mississippi River and Tributaries Project, which was authorized by the 1928 Flood Control Act. This set of public meetings comprised the 411th session of the commission.

Seventeen speakers presented testimony to the commission during the New Madrid meeting, with several also providing written statements for the commission to review. Comments included progress reports on levee construction, rehabilitation and studies, concerns over sedimentation and blocked drainage ditches, failing pumps and “pinch points” and slide presentations about flooding impacts to agriculture and ongoing conservation efforts. 

Those speaking specifically about navigation concerns were Marty Hettel of American Commercial Barge Line, who also serves as a member of the Inland Waterways Users Board; Aimee Andres, executive director of Inland Rivers, Ports and Terminals; Robert Sinkler, executive coordinating director of Corn Belt Ports and a board member for the National Waterways Conference and the Upper Mississippi, Illinois and Missouri Rivers Association; and Dennis Wilmsmeyer, executive director of America’s Central Port District in Granite City, Ill., near St. Louis, as well as the chairman of the Illinois Ports Association and a member and past president of IRPT.

Third Season Of Low Water

Hettel began by drawing commissioners’ attention to the river gauge in Memphis, Tenn.: –1.5 feet on August 19. Back in 2023, the Memphis river gauge was at –0.4 feet on August 24, 2023, and in 2022 it was –1.8 feet on August 23, he said.

“It looks like we will once again see some drastic, extreme low-water conditions on the Lower Mississippi River for the third year in a row,” Hettel said.

He also pointed to the NOAA 28-day forecast, which calls for the Memphis river gauge to drop to –5.5 feet at Memphis on September 15. Last year, Hettel said, Memphis was at –9.09 feet on September 15, and in 2022 was –2.94 feet on September 15.

When the Memphis gauge drops to below –5 feet, towboat companies typically have to restrict the draft of their tows to 9 feet, Hettel said.

“If the NOAA forecast holds true, these draft restrictions will be right at the beginning of harvest,” he said.

He added that companies are already reducing both their tow sizes and drafts because of the falling river. Drafts had already been reduced from 12.5 feet to 12 feet and were likely to be cut even further to a draft of 11 feet by the end of the week, he said. Industry has resumed at least twice weekly calls with the Corps of Engineers via the Lower Mississippi River Committee to deal with navigation issues related to low water, he said.

While in the 2022 low-water season, most dredging was reactive, dredging was more proactive in 2023, Hettel said.

“We’re at the stage right now we need to be in that proactive stage, and we need to bring these dredges up here and maintain the Lower Miss so we can move those farmers’ commodities to market,” he said.

Hettel also expressed concern for what he sees as a developing low-water trend.

“It looks like we’re in a year-over-year weather pattern that does not develop enough precipitation to keep the Lower Mississippi River at levels for the inland waterways industry to be efficient as possible,” he said.

Hettel also asked for the Vicksburg and Memphis districts to move the dredges Hurley and Jadwin north “as soon as possible” from their locations south of Baton Rouge to perform proactive dredging in the Lower Mississippi.

Request For Permanent 12-Foot Channel

Hettel said the inland waterways industry was asking to maintain the navigation channel in the Lower Mississippi to a dredged depth of 12 feet between Cairo, Ill., and Baton Rouge, La., as authorized in the Flood Control Act of 1944. He suggested doing so this year and then comparing the cost to the maintenance dredging in 2022 and 2023.

“While I realize this is certainly a big ask, we’re again looking at a real possibility of drastic low water Cairo south this year, and again right at the beginning of the navigation channel,” Hettel said. “If we had a 12-foot navigation channel, the farmer would be more competitive in a world marketplace as you would not see the freight rates escalated such as we did in 2022 and 2023.”

Additionally, as an example, he said every 25-barge tow that leaves Cairo drawing 9 feet could have been loaded in 20 barges drafting 11 feet.

“So when we use up all that capacity, guess what,” he said. “The freight market gets tight. Freight rates go up. The farmer is not as competitive in the world marketplace.”

Already, he said, grain elevators are having to calculate the extra cost in shipping grain into the prices they will pay farmers for their crops, which will affect farmers’ bottom line.

Hettel said he knows the Lower Mississippi Comprehensive Study is looking at the impacts of permanently deepening the channel, but he urged not waiting for the study to be complete to act.

“That’s a five-year study,” he said. “How many more years of drastic low water do we go through even if they recommend maintaining at 12 feet?”

Hettel acknowledged that maintaining the channel at 12 feet would come with a significant cost, although he said industry is working with Congress to try to get additional funding for it.

Commissioner James Reeder asked what the cost would be to maintain a dependable channel of 12 feet versus the current 9-foot channel. 

Hettel did not give a specific comparison with the 9-foot depth but said that when he talks to people at the Mississippi Valley Division, they estimate the cost to be $40 million to maintain a 12-foot channel in drastic low-water conditions.

When asked about the cost that farmers bore because of increased freight rates in 2022 and 2023, Hettel said a record price was set for a barge out of the St. Louis Engineer District at 3,000 percent of tariff in 2022. The tariff rate is $3.99 per ton in St. Louis, he added. In 2023, he said, the freight rate there reached as high as 2,000 percent of tariff out of St. Louis.

Need For Approved, Unfunded Project Database

Andres spoke about two different communications needs.

One is for a downloadable and searchable database of authorized but unfunded infrastructure projects along the river system as authorized in section 1154A of the Water Resources Development Act of 2018. 

“This aligns very well with the many members we have around the country, both private terminals and public ports, that are investing in their landside infrastructure,” Andres said.

She added that, without investment in river infrastructure, those investments in ports and terminals could go to waste.

Although a report that would include progress made toward completing the database was due in 2020 with updates to take place every two years, there has been no such report, Andres said. IRPT has sought information from the Corps districts to compile its own list, she said. While districts on the Upper Mississippi have provided their backlogs and dollar amounts, some other districts have not provided information, she said.

What information has been provided has been helpful for IRPT in achieving its goals, Andres said.

“We’ve been able to share that data with some of the congressional leaders, and they are astounded when they see that this is the amount that is needed,” she said.

She added, “They know that we need investment, and they need to know how much investment that is going to entail.”

Sinkler also used his time to talk about the need for an inventory or “common view” of infrastructure systems and projects in the Mississippi Valley to more effectively communicate what the needs are throughout the system.

“We don’t want to create a situation where the Lower Miss is competing with the Upper Miss or vice versa or port regions are competing with each other or districts are competing with each other,” Sinkler said. “So if you can help us put together this common picture, this will help us, we think, help you get the kind of resources you need.”

Peeples said she would ask for a member of the division of programs office to provide communication about the unfunded projects database report and looked forward to looking with those who have expressed interest as to how that might best be presented, possibly using a graphically or map-based format.

Need For Central, Public Navigation Hazards Website

Andres also emphasized the need for an easily accessible source of information about navigation hazards for all stakeholders, and not only for barge lines and captains. Terminals calling up barges out of a fleet should be able to know if there’s an obstruction in the river,” Andres said.

“Our Army Corps needs to be communicating more effectively than what they currently are,” she said.

Some of the main communication is taking place from reaction committees with members then emailing those they know, she said.

“We’re not always sitting at our emails, and with the increased cybersecurity protections that all of our email systems have, we cannot solely rely on email communications when obstacles happen on our river,” she said.

The Corps has invested in its Notice To Navigation Interests (NTNI) system, which some districts are using to communicate obstructions publicly, Andres said, but she added that several districts are not using it for those purposes.

Andres offered the example of when all navigation on the Mississippi River was stopped beneath the Hernando de Soto bridge in Memphis in May 2021 because of a major structural failure. There was a powerhouse in Louisiana expecting a load of coal by barge. It only had a two-week supply of coal on property to supply energy to consumers.

Commissioner Riley James thanked Andres for raising the issue. He added that during the low water of the last couple of years he found it “obtuse” that there wasn’t a website that everyone on the lower river could go to see what was happening. He said he was getting calls from fertilizer plants and other entities along the river asking him what was going on.

Such a website is not without precedent, James said, adding that, for example, the Missouri Department of Transportation has a website that includes projects that impact navigation along the state’s roadway system.

“You can look and see where there is road construction right now,” he said. “And so if it was something as simple as that, it would be much easier and much more beneficial to the commerce of this nation.”

Peeples said she would ask for some of those involved in communications strategic engagements to get more information about the use of NTNIs.

Request For Statistical Port District Tonnage Recalculation

Wilmsmeyer expressed his concerns about port districts incorporating many more miles of river into a port statistical area and thereby inflating the recorded amount of freight tonnage moving through the port. Wilmsmeyer called it “changing definitions to suit their own needs.”

While the average port statistical area incorporated fewer than 100 river miles 20 years ago, he said some now include more than 200 miles of river. 

“One of the actions taken by local areas is what I refer to as leap-frogging,” he said. “That is the redefining of a port statistical area to a larger and larger number of river miles in order to grab more tonnage to be listed as the largest or, mistakenly, even referred to as the busiest inland port in the country.”

This means when the Waterborne Commerce Statistics Center releases its data each year for which ports had the most barge freight tonnage travel through them, it is more and more meaningless, he said.

“There is no true point of reference,” he said of the current system. “It’s akin to saying the tallest student in the class is the one standing on the teacher’s desk, even though that individual is actually the shortest when standing on ground level.”

Instead, he proposed a system where the total barge freight tonnage would be divided by the number of river miles in the port statistical district to come up with the average tonnage of freight moved per mile in the district. 

“The data is already being collected, and publishing it in that fashion would help to clarify and level the playing field and potentially end the practice of communities and ports redefining PSA boundaries with the hope of trying to leap-frog one another,” Wilmsmeyer said.

He asked for an immediate change in the reporting and publishing of tonnage data to use the number of tons per river mile as primary.

“This is a more straightforward metric, and it compares apples to apples,” he said.