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Paralysis on America's Rivers: There's Too Much Water


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https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/paralysis-on-america-s-rivers-there-s-too-much-water/ar-AACFIpA?ocid=AMZN

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The devastating flooding that has submerged large parts of the Midwest and South this spring has also brought barge traffic on many of the regions’ rivers to a near standstill. The water is too high and too fast to navigate. Shipments of grains, fertilizers and construction supplies are stranded. And riverfront ports, including the ones Mr. Shell oversees in Van Buren and Fort Smith, Ark., have been overtaken by the floods and severely damaged.

As Mr. Shell surveyed the wreckage last week, anything approaching normalcy remained months, or even a year, away. To start, he would be happy just to get the power restored.

“Before this happened, my mind-set was, ‘What am I doing in the next month or two?’ — trying to stay ahead,” said Mr. Shell, the president of Five Rivers Distribution, which sends products up and down rivers on barges. “Nowadays, I wake up with, ‘What am I going to do for today?’”

Across the country’s flood-battered midsection, the farms, towns and homes consumed by the bloated waters have drawn much of the attention. But flooding has had another, less intuitive effect — crippling the nation’s essential river commerce. Water, the very thing that makes barge shipping possible in normal times, has been present in such alarming overabundance this spring that it has rendered river transportation impossible in much of the United States.

 

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I spent a winter working in Memphis at a site directly on the Mississippi River. For 9 hours a day, I overlooked barge traffic going up and down the river. There were probably 3 or 4 barges that would pass either going upriver or downriver in an hour. It was truly surprising. 

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13 minutes ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

I guess I just take it for granted, because I live right by a lock and dam and I grew up around the Mississippi and Arkansas Rivers and I've known tons of people who work on the barges. 

 

Did you guys not realize shipped is still done via the Great Lakes, too?  :p 

I knew we shipped from the great lakes. I just didn't know that river shipping was still a thing. Although from some basic Googling it looks like Canada may have some barges in the Mckenzie River. What a world. 

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There are so many components to the torrential rains this year-- record flooding in parts of the midwest that'll hurt crops, high waters hurting shipments, and a surplus of nutrients from the flooding running into the Gulf that'll likely create a large dead zone that'll kill many fish/sea life.

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29 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

There are so many components to the torrential rains this year-- record flooding in parts of the midwest that'll hurt crops, high waters hurting shipments, and a surplus of nutrients from the flooding running into the Gulf that'll likely create a large dead zone that'll kill many fish/sea life.

But it won't affect offshore oil drilling though :flag:

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