Mississippi River Channel Status

[wwicko]

The Mississippi River channel situation is a national economic disaster. Early reports were that it may take weeks to merely survey the status of the channel.

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Shippers on Gulf, Mississippi River scramble
Friday, September 02, 2005
By Janet Adamy, Paul Glader and Daniel Machalaba
The Wall Street Journal

[excerpt]

...Surrounded by a giant map and route charts in his Queen City, Mo., office, Mr. Snider, who runs R&O Transportation LLC, has been talking on two phones at once to reroute his fleet of 120 trucks to collect bananas instead at Freeport, Texas. As of Thursday, more than half his refrigerated trucks sat idle as he redrew routes and frantically tried to reach drivers. "This is a massive thing to create a new (transportation) lane," he says. "We went in 12 hours from something that worked to nothing."

It could soon get worse. The federal government is struggling to determine how soon Gulfport and other hurricane-ravaged harbors on the Gulf of Mexico can be repaired. Their biggest concern Thursday was the mouth of the Mississippi River, conduit for more than 6,000 ocean-going vessels a year carrying grain, oil, steel, coal, food and other goods.

The port of New Orleans remains closed to ocean shipping, awaiting an assessment of damages caused by Hurricane Katrina. If the river or the surrounding ports are unusable for months, problems like Mr. Snider's could be repeated a million-fold at companies across the country.

Survey crews for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Thursday began surveying lower Mississippi ship channels for potential obstructions, focusing on the southernmost 20 miles or so. Officials worry about the condition of the channel below the water's surface because aerial surveys show shrimp boats crushed together and numerous barges and vessels washed up on levees along the sides of the channel. Surveying was to resume Friday...

More: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05245/564679.stm

[birdwomn]

This is a huge concern...and what makes this a national disaster...not just a natural disaster, IMO.

We are in for a long, hard road, folks.

[baygirl_1]

Fortunately, the Mobile Ship Channel which is essential for shipping along the Tennessee-Tombigbee is opening. Here's the story from the Mobile Register (link: http://www.al.com/news/mobileregister/index.ssf?/base/news/1125652879141970.xml&coll=3):

Mobile Ship Channel should reopen this weekend
Friday, September 02, 2005
By GEORGE WERNETH
Staff Reporter
The Mobile Ship Channel is expected to reopen to deep water traffic by Sunday and possibly as soon as late Saturday, after being closed pending completion of a survey to determine navigation problems caused by Hurricane Katrina, an official said.

"They've got to get some of the aids to navigation back in place," marking the channel, which stretches some 35 miles from just south of the mouth of Mobile Bay up into the port of Mobile, Patrick Robbins, a spokesman the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, reported Thursday.

Robbins said representatives of the corps' Mobile District have been working with the U.S. Coast Guard to determine the Katrina impact. The channel provides shipping access through the shallow waters of Mobile Bay into Mobile's harbor.

Work was under way Thursday to put channel markers back into their proper positions after they were knocked out of place by the Category 4 hurricane.

The corps spokesman said the Mobile Ship Channel is expected to reopen with some restrictions, which would likely involve limiting ship drafts to 42 feet in the upper channel leading into the port until dredging can be done to remove some shoaling caused by the hurricane. The channel has an authorized depth of 45 feet from its entrance off the mouth of the bay, up to the Wallace Tunnels in Mobile's lower harbor, and to a depth of 40 feet from the tunnels northward.

Alabama State Port Authority spokeswoman Judith Adams said Thursday that two ships at its state docks facilities were waiting for the channel to reopen so they could leave the port. She said about a half-dozen ships were reported to be anchored just south of the mouth of Mobile Bay, waiting for the channel to be reopened so they could come into the port.

She said of the expected reopening, "It's good news for us. It looks like we're going to be back in business this weekend."

The channel is currently open to barge traffic only.

A spokesman for the Coast Guard's Unified Command Mobile reported Thursday that the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway from Mobile to New Orleans remained closed. The waterway is normally heavily traveled by barge traffic. This strip is part of a 1,300-mile coastal waterway that stretches from St. Marks, Fla., to Brownsville, Texas.

Also remaining closed Thursday were the ship channels to the Mississippi ports of Pascagoula, Biloxi and Gulfport. The Mississippi coast was especially hard-hit by the hurricane.

However, I know this will not really help with the traffic on the Mississippi River as it is probably impossible to utilize the Tennessee-Tombigbee from there.

[wwicko]

I tired briefly to find a map of the Mobile Ship Channel online, but found none. Can someone please describe the route of this channel?

Also, here's a couple more excerpts from the article cited above:

...By closing the New Orleans ports, Katrina effectively eliminated the cheapest way for American industries in the nation's heartland to do business overseas. Some economists figure that the competition of the river-barge industry with the railroads and trucking companies saves companies roughly $1 billion annually.

Agriculture-industry officials say other U.S. ports simply don't have the capacity to absorb the two billion bushels of grain that move annually through New Orleans. "The ports in the rest of country are already at capacity," said one federal official....

...The problem for the grain industry is that executives have little idea whether the railroad companies, which are already running at a high level of capacity, have the space to carry much of the grain that normally would move by barge to New Orleans. Some industry officials are guessing that perhaps one-fifth of the grain that normally moves through New Orleans could move to other U.S. ports for export...

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Maybe we should follow Brazil's lead and convert the grain to alcohol for transport fuel. Better than letting it rot.

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Homegrown Fuel Supply Helps Brazil Breathe Easy
By Marla Dickerson, Times Staff Writer

SAO PAULO, Brazil — While Americans fume at high gasoline prices, Carolina Rossini is the essence of Brazilian cool at the pump.

Like tens of thousands of her countrymen, she is running her zippy red Fiat on pure ethanol extracted from Brazilian sugar cane. On a recent morning in Brazil's largest city, the clear liquid was selling for less than half the price of gasoline, a sweet deal for the 26-year-old lawyer...

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-e ... ck=tothtml

[baygirl_1]

I tired briefly to find a map of the Mobile Ship Channel online, but found none. Can someone please describe the route of this channel...

The Mobile Ship Channel runs from the Alabama State Docks (in downtown Mobile) through the Mobile River and Mobile Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. It allows shipping traffic to travel from the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway (which makes its way to Mobile through our River Delta to the Port of Mobile) to the Gulf.
However, I'm not sure how feasible it is for Mississippi River traffic to make their way over to the Tennessee-Tombigbee and use the Mobile Ship Channel to get to the Gulf.

[gratefulnole]

Maybe we should follow Brazil's lead and convert the grain to alcohol for transport fuel. Better than letting it rot.

track=tothtml

Farmers turning grain into alcohol was the source of the whiskey rebellion that George Washington put down when he was President. Though the alcohol was meant for drinking and not fuel and the grain is for export instead of domestic consumption.
I bet we do see an increase in ethanol usage.