Mississippi faces shipping closure as the worst drought in half a century brings water levels close to record lows!!!

The Mississippi as seen from Ed Drager's tug boat is a river in retreat: a giant beached barge is stranded where the water dropped, with sand bars springing into view. The floating barge office where the tug boat captain reports for duty is tilted like a funhouse. One side now rests on the exposed shore. "I've never seen the river this low," Drager said. "It's weird."

The worst drought in half a century has brought water levels in the Mississippi close to historic lows and could shut down all shipping in a matter of weeks – unless Barack Obama takes extraordinary measures.

It's the second extreme event on the river in 18 months, after flooding in the spring of 2011 forced thousands to flee their homes.


Without rain, water levels on the Mississippi are projected to reach historic lows this month, the national weather service said in its latest four-week forecast.

"All the ingredients for us getting to an all-time record low are certainly in place," said Mark Fuchs, a hydrologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in St Louis. "I would be very surprised if we didn't set a record this winter."

The drought has already created a low-water choke point south of St Louis, near the town of Thebes, where pinnacles of rock extend upwards from the river bottom making passage treacherous.
... [link to www.climatecentral.org]

yea i posted a thread on this a couple of weeks ago, they said by december 9th the water levels would be so low barges wouldn't be able to cross. so now it is the 17th, guess they were off by a little bit. but not good nope, not good at all.

Yes this article is massive, they say they nead much smaller boats!

unless obama takes takes serious measures? like what?

Good info. Some lack of interest today it seems. Growing problem for sure. If you find some good info when it hits record low please keep us informed. Thanks eddy

Didn't I see a thread about the Corps blowing up these rocks in the river?

i don't see it...

[link to s383.beta.photobucket.com]

The Army Corps of Engineers has begun removing rock pinnacles from a six-mile stretch of the river near Thebes, Ill., just a few miles south of Cape Girardeau, as part of an effort to keep commerce flowing during the low-water period. Missouri conservation officials and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are both on hand to monitor the rock removal that is expected to eventually involve the use of explosives. For now, the rocks are being removed through excavation.

The middle Mississippi River is approaching historic lows due to months of drought, a situation worsened last month when the corps cut the outflow from an upper Missouri River reservoir, further reducing the amount of water flowing into the Mississippi.

Rock removal is expected to take 30 to 45 days, with explosives likely to be needed at some point -- officials just can't say when, Petersen said.

[link to www.mysanantonio.com]

[link to www.semissourian.com]

Last Edited by Rain-Man on 12/19/2012 11:52 AM

Gezzzzzzzzzzzz

They're going to blow the rock formations in Janurary. The river traffic is restriced to 8ft draft and many tugs are running light on fuel and water to safely navigate the river.

Barges usually run at 10' and sometimes 10'6" draft at normal water levels. The loss of cargo from this light loading has resulted in more traffic and slower transit times. Boats have also been restricted on the number of barges they can have in tow.

One note of interest is the large number of Coal power plants on this section of river. If they cant get the coal to the plants????????

The USCG has started a call in traffic system for river traffic in the upper Mississippi (CAIRO IL TO THE MERIMAC RIVER @ MILE 160) river to organize one way traffic through the tight spots.

They are not going to blow the rocks. They are going to do what they always do. They are going to use track hoes to pull out the impediments. Blowing the rocks would have cost $10 Million dollars. This is fact. listened to my radio this morning.

crazy. I live literally 55 miles from the river in Vicksburg and I haven't heard a word about this....

Of course, that may be what I get from paying more attention to this site than the news stations.

Radio might have lied. Explosives are quite cheap and have been used for removing rock for centuries. Where do you get the 10 milion figure?? Now to be rude about it SO FUCKING WHAT!! I saw a USCG bulletin that would create a safety zone aroud that area for use of explosives! Does it fucking matter how the rocks are removed you nit picky fuck!

Record lows? Bullshit. The river dried up in 1988. Stop believing stupid global warming lies.

Radio is MSM so they might have lied. I am just a contractor who repairs clutches on track hoes for less than $10,000,000.
:ttb2:

Pull all the rocks and dredge all the sand bars. So the water will flow faster and be gone that much sooner

There's an observed relationship of Solar activity and Mississippi stream flows. Judging by the past data, the flow should be increasing now with solar maximum. However these graphs only show up to 2001. Could the weak solar cycle be disturbing this relationship. By the way, I don't buy the man-made CO2 fables, either.

Interesting data:

[link to ks.water.usgs.gov]

Thank's!!!

But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. Revelation 12:16

Article in the paper this AM said that they were starting by using barges with track hoes and cranes on top of them to lift most of the rocks from the water. Doing it during the day with barge traffic resumed running at night. The article said that the Corps snticipated that phase would last almost a month.

After all those smaller rocks can be lifted are out then they WILL blow the bigger stuff into smaller pieces that can then be lifted out.

Total expected time for clearing the 40 miles or so they are working on (that is the worst) is 6 to 7 weeks.

I imagine that they are also simultaneously dregging shallow parts of the channel, but that is easy to do compared to getting the rocks out (rocks can rip out the bottom of a barge, mud will only stop it).

The current problem area is the Mississippi below St. Louis and above Cairo Ill (Cairo is where the Ohio flows into the Mississippi) - (fwiw St. Louis is where the Missouri flows into the river and in normal times makes it MUCH bigger - it is the Missouri that is suffering the most from exrtemely low water flows which is why the problem is showing up downstream from where it enters the Mississippi)

It won't be that way if New Madrid happens.

What about Jaws?

excellent point. Someone knows some hydraulics.

~.+