Ol' Man River maybe won't be just rolling along?
11-29-12
Associated Press
Drought threatens to close Mississippi to barges
Drought could make Mississippi impassable to barges just as 2012 harvest heads to market
By Jim Suhr and Jim Salter
http://weather.yahoo.com/drought-threatens-close-mississippi-barges-2004...
ST. LOUIS (AP) -- After months of drought, companies that ship grain and other goods down the Mississippi River are being haunted by a potential nightmare: If water levels fall too low, the nation's main inland waterway could become impassable to barges just as the harvest heads to market.
Any closure of the river would upend the transport system that has carried American grain since before steamboats and Mark Twain. So shipping companies are scrambling to find alternative ways to move tons of corn, wheat and other crops to the Gulf Coast for shipment overseas.
"You can't just wait until it shuts down and suddenly say, 'There's a problem,'" said Rick Calhoun, head of marine operations for Chicago-based Cargill Inc. "We're always looking at Plan B."
The mighty Mississippi is approaching the point where it may become too shallow for barges that carry food, fuel and other commodities. If the river is closed for a lengthy period, experts say, economic losses could climb into the billions of dollars.
It isn't just the shipping and grain industries that will feel the pinch. Grocery prices and utility bills could rise. And deliveries of everything from road-clearing rock salt for winter and fertilizer for the spring planting season could be late and in short supply.
"The longer it lasts, the worse it gets," said Don Sweeney, associate director of the Center for Transportation Studies at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. "It's inevitable that it will mean higher prices down the road."
The focus of greatest concern is a 180-mile stretch of the river between the confluences of the Missouri River near St. Louis and the Ohio River at Cairo, Ill. That's where lack of rain has squeezed the channel from its normal width of 1,000 feet or more to just a few hundred feet.
The river depth is 15 to 20 feet less than normal, now about 13 feet deep in many places. If it dips to around 9 feet, rock pinnacles at two locations make it difficult, if not impossible, for barges to pass. Hydrologists for the National Weather Service predict the Mississippi will reach the 9-foot mark by Dec. 9.
The situation worsened last week when the Army Corps of Engineers began reducing the outflow from an upper Missouri River dam in South Dakota, where a group of experts said Thursday that the worst U.S. drought in decades had intensified over the last week.
The flow is gradually being cut by more than two-thirds by Dec. 11 as part of an effort to ease the effects of the drought in the northern Missouri River basin.
Lawmakers from Mississippi River states are frustrated with the corps' action and even requested a presidential emergency declaration to overturn it. So far, the White House has not responded.
On Thursday, Army Assistant Secretary Jo-Ellen Darcy told Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois and some of his colleagues from Iowa and Minnesota that the corps would consider cutting the amount of water held back from the Mississippi.
Darcy also pledged to expedite removal of rock formations south of St. Louis, though that work would take at least two months after a contractor is hired.
To Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, the stakes couldn't be higher.
"There is going to be a dramatic ripple effect to our economy if the barge traffic grinds to halt, which clearly it will if something is not done to avert this crisis," she said.
Her Missouri colleague in the Senate, Republican Roy Blunt, acknowledged "friction" between upper Missouri River interests that control the flow and those downstream on the lower Missouri and Mississippi rivers. He said the corps "needs to manage that balance."
Over the years, parts of the river have occasionally been closed because of low water, barge accidents, dredging, ice and flooding. But this shutdown, if it happens, would affect a pivotal stretch that is used for heavy two-way traffic — shipments going south to the Gulf as well as transports from the Illinois and Ohio rivers headed north to Chicago and Minneapolis.
A two-month shutdown — the length of time that some observers fear given current conditions — would have an estimated impact of $7 billion, according to the river industry trade group American Waterways Operators.
Consider agricultural products. It costs 30 to 35 cents more per bushel to send grain to the Gulf by rail instead of barge — a massive figure when calculating the millions of bushels shipped downriver.
"When you think of all we buy at the grocery store that has grain and corn, consumers could really see it hit them in the pocketbooks," said Ann McCulloch of the Waterways Operators group.
The Coast Guard controls navigation on the river and decides when to require restrictions or shut it down.
"It's really played by ear," Coast Guard Lt. Colin Fogarty said. "The Mississippi River is a dynamic environment."
River shippers are bracing for the worst, weighing train and truck alternatives to move a staggering volume of cargo, if necessary.
Seven million tons of farm products are shipped via barge in a typical December-January period, along with 3.8 million tons of coal, 1.7 million tons of chemical products, 1.3 million tons of petroleum products and 700,000 tons of crude oil, McCulloch said.
Trains already haul a vast volume of material, but switching from river to rail isn't that easy, especially on short notice. Cargill, for example, uses 1,300 of its own barges on inland waterways. Finding that much capacity elsewhere is no simple task.
"We'll look for other sources of transportation to the extent we can. But if you take away this important artery, you can't just snap your fingers and replace it with trains," Calhoun said. "There aren't just trains sitting around. They're already pretty busy with their business on their books."
Tractor-trailers can pick up some of the slack. But some cargo, such as coal, just isn't cost-effective to haul by truck over long distances, said Bob Costello, an economist with the American Trucking Associations.
Businesses operating directly on the river are bound to suffer, too.
George Foster founded JB Marine Service Inc. in St. Louis 36 years ago to make a living fixing and cleaning barges. An extended river closure may force layoffs, he said. He figures many other companies will be forced to cut jobs, too.
"It's extremely dire," Foster said. "There's no way to sugarcoat it."
11-29-12
Reuters
Evidence for man-made climate change getting stronger - U.N.
By Environment Correspondent Alister Doyle
http://weather.yahoo.com/evidence-man-made-climate-change-getting-strong...
DOHA (Reuters) - Evidence that global warming is man-made is getting stronger, the head of a U.N. panel of climate scientists said, in a further blow to sceptics who argue rising temperatures can be explained by natural variations.
Rajendra Pachauri spoke on the sidelines of a conference in Qatar where 200 nations are trying to reach a deal to cut emissions of greenhouse gases to avert floods, droughts, heatwaves and mounting sea levels.
The influential U.N. climate panel said the probability human activity was the main cause of climate change was "at least 90 percent" in its last report in 2007.
Pachauri told Reuters late on Wednesday he expected the panel would raise the level of that likelihood even higher in its next report, due in 2013.
"We certainly have a substantial amount of information available by which I hope we can narrow the gaps, increase the level of certainty of our findings," he said.
"We will have a lot more information this time around on the melting of Greenland and Antarctica. I hope we will get a little more information on sea level rise," he added.
Rising sea levels pose a particular threat to people living in low-lying areas, from Bangladesh to the cities of New York, London and Buenos Aires. They open up the risk of storm surges, coastal erosion and, in the worst case scenario, complete swamping of large areas of land.
The last report by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) gave a wide range for sea levels, saying they could rise by between 18 and 59 cm (7-24 inches) by 2100.
Those numbers did not take account of a possible acceleration of a melt of Antarctic or Greenland ice, due to big uncertainties.
"KYOTO THE ONLY SHOW IN TOWN"
Some scientists and organisations have questioned whether gases released by industry and other human activity are the main causes of global warming, pointing instead to natural climactic variations and events like shifts in the sun's output.
They have also suggested warming may have flattened out, citing data showing 1998, 2005 and 2010 are tied as the warmest years since records began in the mid-19th century.
But a study released during the Qatar talks study backed IPCC projections that temperatures were creeping higher, and sea levels were rising even faster than predicted.
Pachauri said the panel would also gain wider understanding of the formation of clouds. The white tops of clouds at low altitudes tend to bounce heat back into space, cooling the planet, while high-altitude clouds often trap heat.
The Doha talks are struggling to extend the U.N.'s troubled Kyoto Protocol, which binds most developed nations to cut emissions by at least 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.
Russia, Canada and Japan are pulling out, saying it is now time for fast-growing emerging nations led by China and India to take on commitments. Under current plans, a new global deal is meant to be agreed in 2015 and enter into force by 2020.
Pachauri said that Kyoto still seemed a good idea. "It's the only show in town. Why give it up?" he said.
A U.N. conference two years ago agreed to limit any rise in temperatures to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6F) above pre-industrial times. But greenhouse gas levels hit a new record in 2011, despite the world economic slowdown.
(Reporting By Alister Doyle; Editing by Andrew Heavens)