Midwest Drought Threatens Crops and Shuts River

[Madame Butterfly 0]

Midwest Drought Threatens Crops and Shuts River

 

By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO, The New York Times

 

CHICAGO (Aug. 14) - Rick and Rhonda Richards drove two and a half hours last Monday from Nashville to Metropolis, Ill., to hit the slot machines there, only to find that Harrah's riverboat casino had closed two nights before for the most unexpected of reasons: low water levels on the Ohio River. A drought ravaging parts of the Midwest this summer had left the boat nearly on the river bottom, making it difficult to board and disembark.

 

 

he couple had planned the two-day trip a month before to celebrate their 33rd wedding anniversary. But they never got word that Harrah's had closed because of low water - the first time that has happened since the casino opened in 1993. "We didn't know what was going on," Mr. Richards said. "The parking lot was empty, the town was empty."

 

As the worst drought since 1988 has deepened across parts of the Midwest, low-water levels are doing more than just inconveniencing gamblers. They are turning parts of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers into virtual sandbars, causing towboats and barges to run aground and delaying shipments of petroleum products, coal, chemicals, agricultural goods and road-paving materials.

 

The delays are threatening construction projects throughout the region, and the higher transportation costs could ultimately make this year's harvest of corn and other crops too expensive for some international markets, commodity analysts and barge-shipping officials said.

 

"There is high anxiety that we are close to shutting down the river," said Lynn Muench, vice president for the mid-continent region of the American Waterways Operators, a trade group representing tugboat, towboat and barge operators. "This is looking as bad or worse than 1988." Her fear was realized on Friday, when the Coast Guard ordered a seven-mile stretch of the Ohio River closed, north of its intersection with the Mississippi River.

 

The drought, which has mostly affected parts of Illinois, Missouri and Wisconsin, has also dried up wells, caused insect infestations and wreaked havoc on corn and soybean fields. A government report on Friday confirmed that corn in Illinois, the second-biggest producer after Iowa, had suffered irreversible harm, with production down 12 percent from last year's record harvest.

 

While showers have been falling across parts of the Midwest, including Chicago, in recent days, meteorologists from the National Weather Service are predicting more hot, dry weather in the eastern Corn Belt.

 

As the parched-earth conditions continue in southern Illinois, barge operators and the Coast Guard are becoming increasingly concerned about how long they can keep the river traffic moving if the water levels continue to dip. Despite efforts by the Army Corps of Engineers to dredge trouble spots, barges continue to struggle to make their way through the river system. A towboat plying the Mississippi on Friday near Memphis struck the river bottom, causing its rudder to break off, Ms. Muench said. And near Cairo, Ill., where the Ohio and Mississippi rivers cross, a towboat pushing 13 barges carrying stone materials ran aground early Friday, finally freeing itself eight hours later.

 

The Coast Guard restricted barge traffic through one seven-mile stretch of the Ohio River where it meets the Mississippi on Aug. 7 after the water level dropped to nine feet. A day later, the water dropped another foot and a half. Over the next three days the Guard worked with the shipping industry to lighten the loads of more than 40 vessels that were eventually eased through the trouble spot.

 

The Coast Guard opened up traffic after a brief surge of water on Wednesday. But after consulting with the industry on Friday morning, it closed the river again, except for extreme need on a case-by-case basis. As of Sunday night, 43 towboats with an average of 15 barges each were immobilized in the area.

 

"We got a good bump of water, but it wasn't long lasting," said Commander Denise L. Matthews, who heads the Coast Guard unit in Paducah, Ky. "Everything is going badly from a Mother Nature perspective."

 

The Paducah office has been getting calls lately from construction firms in Indiana concerned about delayed asphalt shipments, and even from a British grain futures-trading firm wanting to know how long the low water levels would last. (Agricultural exports are typically shipped downriver between August and November.)

 

Coast Guard officials are holding daily telephone conferences with industry representatives and the Army Corps of Engineers to develop strategies for finding at least a 180-foot-wide path for towboats to navigate through. Officers use a dry-erase board in the command center's main conference room to chart the size and draft of various barges trying to make it through the Ohio. Commander Matthews said she was hoping an Army Corps of Engineers boat that began dredging more of the area on Sunday would make a difference. The operation could take up to two weeks, she said.

 

Lightening the barge loads is costly. The barge operators have been forced to load at 9 to 10 feet of draft, the depth of a boat's hull under the surface, down from a typical loading of about 12 feet. Losing one inch of draft typically means losing 17 tons of cargo on a single barge, and 255 tons on a typical 15-barge tow. A typical tractor-trailer truck rig carries about 26 tons. Idle towboats cost shipping companies $5,000 to $10,000 a day. "Eventually the cost gets passed on to consumers," Ms. Muench said.

 

Meanwhile, some companies are stockpiling coal, salt and sand ahead of winter, anticipating that the drought will continue to worsen over the next month, making the rivers impassable, Ms. Muench said.

 

Meanwhile, crops have suffered in the relentless sun. In its report on Friday, the Agriculture Department said it expected corn yields to be lower this year in 29 of 33 corn states, with the largest decreases in Missouri, Illinois and Kansas. Soybean yields are also lower than last year, especially in Illinois and Missouri. "These rains right now will help the soybean crop," said Dave Lehman, managing director of commodities at the Chicago Board of Trade. "It is too late for corn."

 

This year's drought is more localized than the severe ones in 1988 and 1997. With farmers in Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska having a good year for corn, prices should remain relatively stable at the supermarket, said Dennis Vercler, a spokesman for the Illinois Farm Bureau.

 

As the drought has deepened, farmers in Illinois have seen more damage from weeds and insects like aphids and Japanese beetles this year. Plants are under stress and cannot fight off the pests as well, and there has not been enough water to activate chemicals that would have warded them off, Mr. Vercler said.

 

In general, however, farmers are not likely to suffer as much as in previous droughts, which led to widespread consolidation of farms and the thinning of rural populations. Farmers today have more federal crop insurance and generally less debt than they did in the mid-1980's. Still, Mr. Vercler said, "It's just been no fun to be a farmer in Illinois this year."

 

Nor has it been fun to be a riverboat casino operator. Late Wednesday the Harrah's casino reopened after workers made adjustments to the emergency stairs and an entrance. The riverboat is connected to land by a floating barge, and as the water level dropped, the barge came to rest on the river bottom. The boat, which is moored further out, continued to drop with the falling waters. As a result, the entrance to the riverboat had dropped more than a foot further than the barge, forcing any customer taller than 5-foot-8 to duck on the way in.

 

The three days Harrah's was closed cost the casino an estimated $975,000 in lost revenues, said Robin Ryan, a Harrah's spokeswoman. The casino has closed before after flooding on the river, most recently in January.

 

Gretchen Ruethling contributed reporting for this article.

[trekz 7]

This drought has definitely been and continues to be a costly one for farmers, and of course there will be costs passed on to consumers for transportation, etc. I think lots of people don't realize the amount of commerce that is still conducted on rivers in the US. Having grown up near the Mississippi River and close to the Hampton Lock and Dam, I've always enjoyed watching river traffic including the many barges filled with goods. Growing up on a farm I can really sympathize with how bad this drought must be. The corn crops will be awful in a lot of areas in Illinois and soybean production will be down though rains now will help with soybean production. Another point of interest is how hit and miss rainstorms can be, as I remember talking to neighbors a township or less away who might have had rain when we had got none . This should make everyone pay a bit more attention to how weather effects us all, including the prices we pay.

[Madame Butterfly 0]

They surmize that at least 60% of the corn crop in my county is gone from the drought.

 

Though alot of it around me does look very good and healthy, I learned that it's in the tassels.

 

If they still have tassels, then that corn will be ok. The tassels didn't form, it's not going to be good for anyone.

Edited August 16, 2005 by Madame Butterfly