Eastern IA Farmer_Fall23_SOUTH

CHANGING RIVER
Brad Hank, lockmaster at LeClaire’s Lock and Dam No. 14, says
river levels have fluctuated wildly during the navigation season the
last two years, with heavy rains in the spring and very dry falls.
EASTERN IOWA FARMER PHOTO / TREVIS MAYFIELD
navigation season.
Machinery is torn down, gearboxes
cleaned, parts oiled, new paint applied
and timbers on the gates changed out.
A rehab in the late 1990s replaced lock
machinery, and the lock chambers have
relatively new gates, but the concrete is
mostly original, as is the dam machinery.
Much of this original infrastructure was
built out between 1935 and 1939.
The Corps of Engineers is continually
working on large maintenance and
upgrade projects, but industry wish lists
are always longer than available resources
allow.
Recently at LeClaire, the Corps of
Engineers poured concrete 30 feet in
diameter for a mooring cell downstream
from the lock, where tows will be able to
tie up while they wait to lock through.
Currently, tows waste fuel idling—“we
call it ‘paddling,’” Hank says—or wait
further downstream away from wind and
rocks. If they do so, they waste precious
time traveling to the lock after the previous
tow locks through.
The bigger picture
In 2022, 37 million tons of freight
passed through Lock and Dam 15 in Rock
Island, Ill. Of that, about 23 million tons
were grain.
The Rock Island District of the Corps
of Engineers estimates a cost savings of
more than $2 billion in 2022 for those
shipping by river through Rock Island
rather than rail.
Most of the grain that ships downriver
is bound for export. Heims said that international
grain is often bound for China or
the Black Sea, where the war in Ukraine
has further destabilized markets.
As of August, year-to-date grain
transport volumes at St. Louis were down
about a quarter from 2022 and from
recent averages.
“We’ve been really slow,” said Hank
of barge transport this summer. Experts
think lower international demand is
lessening volume, which could result in
less of an impact to farmers if low water
drives up shipping prices this fall.
According to the Soybean Transportation
Coalition, low transportation costs
are essential for maintaining American
competitiveness in the international grain
market, especially as Brazil upgrades
freight systems.
In 2022, the high costs of river transport
didn’t last long and were softened by
good grain prices overall.
“It did have an impact, but farmers felt
more of an impact in their cost structure
than they did on their prices,” said Chad
Hart, crops market specialist, extension
economist and professor with Iowa State
University.
“We were still staring at really good
prices through the entire problem,” he
said.
One development on the Lower Mississippi
promises to lower shipping costs
for farmers. The Corps of Engineers is
currently dredging the Mississippi from
a depth of 45 to 50 feet from the river’s
mouth to Baton Rouge, La., which is
expected to bring cost savings of about 13
cents per bushel.
Meanwhile, another development could
revolutionize river shipping: companies
are racing to build boats that could effectively
haul the same containers as are
used in rail and truck shipping, lowering
the cost and time associated with loading
and unloading.
Economic developers are working to
create a container shipping hub at St.
Louis in anticipation of container river
shipping.
Meanwhile, as of this writing, low
water in the Panama Canal – in what is
usually one of the wettest countries of
the world –was lightening shiploads in a
crucial nexus of international trade and
agriculture, giving farmers just another
reason to feel a little seasick. n
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9/19/23 3:35 PM