Rivers like the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio all play a critical role in transporting agricultural goods, even in the winter. While navigation continues, heavy river ice can cut travel speeds in half and requires square barge configurations to prevent ice from packing into gaps and hindering steering. Jimmy Cheatham, a barge captain, said despite the challenges of winter, goods are still moving.
“Our river system, as we have at the lower Mississippi, very seldom gets shut down. It moves a lot of tonnage. It’s the lifeline of the upper rivers. You’ve got the Upper, you’ve got the Ohio River, Tennessee River, the Cumberland River, the Missouri River pretty much shuts down during the winter months. The Upper Mississippi shuts down during the winter months due to ice because it’s just too impossible to navigate. But we still move a lot of product out, and a lot of our imports come in for our agriculture customers, especially a lot of salts. This is moved up north — building materials, coal transported south. We’re still exporting a large amount of coal.”
Despite winter snowfall, Cheatham said river levels are still running low in many places.
“Commonly, this time of year, we have a little bit more water, but over the last five years, we’ve experienced drought conditions, and right now we’re still under a drought condition. I guess you could say, even though we’ve had an ample amount of snowfall. We’ve had thaw, and we’ve had more snow. We’ve had rain, but the lower Mississippi, St. Louis south, is still pretty treacherous to run. We’re bringing 25 out of St. Louis right now, load southbound. There are some 36-barge tows going south right now where they could take 42 and 46 south. We do have some draft restrictions, but things are moving, and there are no major hiccups right now, which is a blessing.”
To navigate treacherous winter conditions and lower water levels caused by ongoing droughts, captains must reduce towing sizes, sometimes from more than 42 barges down to 25, which directly impacts corporate profitability.