The Mississippi River’s 70-year-old system of locks and dams urgently needs upgrades to accommodate barges that have gotten bigger over time, a group of federal lawmakers is warning after last week’s dayslong shutdown of the river’s busiest lock.
“The system of locks and dams along the Upper Mississippi are in desperate need of modernization. The current system was built 70 years ago and updates are needed to fit the requirements of modern barge technology. Many of the older locks are only 600 feet in length, while most current barge tows using the waterway are twice as long. That means these goods take twice as long to get down river and into the marketplace,” wrote the Senators. “As the Environment and Public Works Committee considers a new Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) bill, we encourage you to work with all stakeholders to find a way to expedite the construction and operation of these critical projects.”
Well there’s nothing new about this. In 1982 I observed the operation where they split the “tow” into to two sections and the deckhands using an electric capstan provided for the purpose,pull the lead barges through the locks. This with the time to breakup the tow and then put it together adds a lot of time for locking through. There could be a long line tied to the wall awaiting their turn to go through. So getting 1200 foot lock would speed things up but why wait so long especially since their isn’t enough of other peoples money around and they been doing it this way for decades.
The environmentalists feared that the new facility represented an effort to promote a 12-foot channel on the Upper Mississippi River. In fact, the design of Lock and Dam No. 26R met the construction requirements for a 12-foot channel as outlined in a 1972 Upper Mississippi River Comprehensive Basin Study. But that same study had also declared a 12-foot channel economically infeasible above the mouth of the Illinois River. Echoing the concerns of the 1930s, railroad officials opposed Lock and Dam No. 26R because they believed a government-owned, river improvement was unfair competition.
1,200’ locks have been incrementally installed. A 12’ channel on the Upper Mississippi has been an issue for decades. There was much talk of a 12’ channel on the Upper Mississippi in the early 1960’s. The army’s massive expenditures in Southeast Asia shortly thereafter quelled the discussion.
Rivers and harbors have a long tradition of being used for transportation in the U. S. The government have always favored them over other kinds of transportation. They are still the cheapest kind of transportation available, especially for high volume low value commodities where time in transport is not important. When I live in New Orleans it was common to see barge loads of shell moving on the river. No doubt river transportation will continue to be used. The issue is not if new larger locks will be installed on the Mississippi River but when will they be installed.
For all of that rivers are still subject to nature to a large degree, much more so than trucks or railroads. There are periods of flood, of low water and in the north the river freezes in winter.
Barge moving companies will continue to lobby for government money to improve rivers and harbors because the amount they pay to use the rivers, an excise tax of their motor fuel, is only a part of the cost. A large part of the cost is borne by U.S. taxpayers, even those of us who live over a thousand miles away. This is classic pork barrel legislating.
Pork barrel issues aside, barge transportation of bulk commodities is a two-sided coin where railroads are involved. Barges and railroads are usually competitors but consider that Chicago & Illinois Midland and TransKentucky Transportation make a lot of their money hauling coal to barge-loading facilities and the various ore roads also transferred their loads to boats.
If you look at the Ohio river lock and dam system you will see that they are completing a program of enlarging the locks on the Ohio and its major tributaries like the Kanawha. It would be logical that the Corps of Engineers would move that effort on to the Mississippi when they are finished with the Ohio.
I don’t see anything “logical” about enlarging the locks on the Mississippi at taxpayer expense.
The only entities receiving significant benefits will be the commercial barge operators and especially their customers. Since these entities are economic operations the method of payment for the new locks should be based soley on sound economic principals. That means payment is by the user and no one else. This links benefits to costs and prohibits wasteful spending.
The locks should only be enlarged if the cost of doing so will be recovered through tolls charged to the barge operators. The barge operators will have to pass the cost of the tolls through to their customers. These customers would be the ultimate beneficiaries of the larger locks and therefore they should be the ones to pay for the larger locks.
Anything else will be a misallocation of scarce economic resources (Money). Such a misallocation will harm the overall US economy and lessen the general well being of the US people.
Enlarging the locks on the taxpayer dime is nothing but corporate welfare and we can’t afford that any more. (If we ever could.)
Sorry but this is super-wrong. You’re saying that its not in the economic interest of the greatest maritime trading power in history to not make sure that its largest inland waterway is not assured to be completely navigable.
Commercial navigation on the Mississippi River, or any other economic activity, is not an end in and of itself. The purpose is to create wealth. This created wealth will allow the people to live better lives. (Accessing things such as quality health care, education, “The Pursuit of Happiness” thing, etc. All of which need to be paid for with wealth created by economic activity.)
If any economic activity cost more than it produces in benefits (i.e. it looses money) it has the opposite effect. In that case wealth is destroyed and the nation’s population is less well off.
The surest way to determine if an economic activity, such as barge operation, produces more benefits than cost is to require the users to pay for the activity. If the users have to pay $100 to get $110 in benefits they’ll do so. The received benefits exceed the cost and wealth is created. On the other hand, it the users get only $90 in benefits for their $100 they will not use the service. They would be destroying wealth by doing so. As long as it’s their own wealth they won’t do that.
But if they can take political action and get the taxpayers to pick up part of the tab the users will do so and enrich themselves at other people’s expense.