News Service October 2, 2003

Downstream, change wouldn't keep boats afloat

BY HENRY J. CORDES

WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

ST. LOUIS - The first towboat to run aground on the drought-shrunken Mississippi was the Mary Evelyn, getting stuck with its 25-barge load near a bridge just south of here.

When another tow grounded hours later, the suddenly not-so-mighty Mississippi River was closed to navigation, halting for days a vital commercial waterway.

In the wake of last month's events, politicians and barge industry leaders here are ratcheting up their fight against changing the amount of water coming down the Missouri River.

From the wide confluence just above St. Louis, the Missouri River at times provides as much as two-thirds of the water that supports millions of tons of commerce on the Mississippi.

And in St. Louis, Mississippi River trade means jobs. St. Louis is the nation's third-largest inland port, with 25,000 jobs directly and indirectly tied to river commerce.

Those seeking change on the Missouri "don't know . . . how important that river is to us," said Terry Nelson of the St. Louis carpenters union, part of a coalition seeking to block change on the Missouri.

For more than a decade, upstream states and environmentalists have pressed the Army Corps of Engineers to change water releases from Missouri dams. Upstream states want more water kept in reservoirs for recreation. Environmentalists want higher spring releases and lower summer flows to create more habitat for endangered wildlife.

The State of Missouri has battled them for every drop. Missouri is the only state in the basin that has opposed all major compromise proposals.

Around St. Louis, the debate isn't an endangered species issue. It's about upstream states trying to steal Missouri's water.

"This is a water war," said Lynn Muench of American Waterways Operators, a barge industry trade group.

Missouri officials argue that altered dam releases not only would be the death-blow for Missouri River navigation but also would hurt commerce on the Mississippi.

The Mississippi argument considerably raises the stakes in the debate. Compared to the lightly trafficked Missouri, the Mississippi is a waterborne superhighway for trade.

Environmentalists and others who are pushing for a more natural Missouri say the corps has no legal obligation to set Missouri River flows to optimize Mississippi water levels. They also cite a corps study saying proposed Missouri changes would help Mississippi commerce when most needed in the fall.

"Missouri wants every drop of water to go by St. Louis when they want it to," said Chad Smith of the environmental group American Rivers. "They need to understand it's the 'Missouri River,' not 'Missouri's River.'"

On a recent late summer day, the barge towboat Magnolia chugged down the Mississippi to mile marker 195. At that point, the noticeably more rapid Missouri River flows in, making the Mississippi that much mightier.

The Mississippi is the primary artery in a system of inland waterways that stretches from the coal fields of Pennsylvania to the farm fields of Nebraska, turning New Orleans into a "third coast" for global trade.

The Mississippi from Minneapolis to St. Louis is controlled by 29 dams and locks that divide it into calm, flat pools on which barge tows stairstep up and down. After the Missouri's flows join in, the Mississippi flows freely from St. Louis south.

For some 60 years, commerce on the Mississippi has thrived. That becomes clear when the Magnolia rounds a bend, revealing the bustling Port of St. Louis.

The Mississippi here is a brawny, working river, both banks lined with dozens of industrial terminals where piles of steel, coal, fertilizer, salt and other goods are loaded and unloaded. The barges stand moored by the hundreds.

"And this is just the beginning here," said Ed Oglesby of Oak Grove, La., the Magnolia's captain. "It keeps going like this for another 10 miles."

The port handles nearly 35 million tons of goods each year, part of an annual 315 million tons moved on the Mississippi.

A half century ago, there were hopes that the Missouri River could become a vital link in that inland water system. The corps built six major dams to provide the consistent water levels needed to float barges.

The Missouri has never lived up to the expectations. Commercial tonnage, once projected to reach 8 million a year, topped out at 3 million tons in 1977. Today, it's less than 1.5 million tons, most moving between St. Louis and Kansas City.

The Missouri isn't as economical to run, with stronger currents and a shallow draft that allow six to eight barges per tow compared to 25 on the Mississippi.

Most of the grain exported from Nebraska and western Iowa now travels by train to ports in the Pacific, with ever-increasing amounts consumed locally by ethanol plants and cattle.

A drought in the late 1980s shortened the barge season four years in a row. That drought also started the push by upstream states to keep reservoirs from being depleted during dry years, creating even more uncertainty for shippers.

As traffic fell, shippers invested less in dock and terminal facilities. Barge operators left the river, leaving only two, both in the St. Louis area.

Then came this summer, when Missouri River navigation shut down after a federal judge ordered a three-day cut in river levels as the result of a suit filed by environmentalists.

Barge companies say that if such disruptions become an annual event, that could kill Missouri River navigation.

"You have to tell your customers, again, we just aren't going to be able to make it," said Roger Blaske, an Alton, Ill., barge operator.

Barge operators also say the recent closure along a stretch of the Mississippi was a wakeup call that Mississippi navigation could be threatened, too.

An analysis by the corps suggests the Mississippi closure was due solely to drought conditions, not the court-ordered drop in Missouri flows. The Mississippi closure started Aug. 22. The lowered water didn't make it downstream until Aug. 24.

Still, barge operators say extended lower Missouri flows can't help but complicate Mississippi navigation.

Missouri has other concerns about the Missouri River, too, including flooding from higher spring flows environmentalists are pushing for.

The Missouri was a hot topic when Republican Christopher "Kit" Bond, the senior U.S. senator from Missouri, spoke recently to a St. Louis agri-business group.

Bond, a legend around Missouri for his bill riders to block change on the river, said the closure of the Mississippi was no surprise given the rivers' relationship.

He noted that the state has a key ally. President Bush recently expressed to Bond his opposition to Missouri flow changes, repeating a 2000 campaign promise that helped Bush narrowly win Missouri.

Perhaps the biggest card Missouri holds is that the corps' current Missouri River operating plan gives the state virtually everything it wants. Gridlock in the river debate is Missouri's friend.

"There is nothing in this process that benefits Missouri," said Randy Asbury, director of the Missouri coalition fighting Missouri River change. "We're just trying to cut our losses."