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Drought Along Mississippi River Adding to U.S. Inflation Woes

3
Erin Marquis
·3 min read
Photo: Photo by Scott Olson) (Getty Images)
Photo: Photo by Scott Olson) (Getty Images)

An intense drought through America’s heartland left 1,700 barges waiting for the Mississippi River to be dredged outside of Vicksburg, Mississippi, this week. The river is at its lowest levels in a decade, causing headaches for vital industries and communities that use the river as a major shipping route and source of drinking water.

The past few months have been some of the driest on record for communities in the Mississippi river basin, Washington Post recently reported. This month, the Army Corps of Engineers needed to repeatedly dredge different spots in the river in order to allow barge-hauling vessels to pass without running aground. Yearly dredging costs the federal government billions each year. Even after dredging, the vessels are carrying 25 percent fewer barges and those barges are carrying 20 percent less weight this year, CNN reports.

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The combination of fewer barges per trip, and less cargo per barge, has cut the capacity of barges moving on the river by about 50% even before the recent river closures, said Mike Seyfert, CEO of the National Grain and Feed Association. And that has sent the rates that shippers are paying soaring.

“From what we hear from members, that has resulted in record levels of barge rates, and that’s being driven by the fact that there is limited traffic,” Seyfert said.

While traveling down Old Man River sounds like an old-timey profession, the Mississippi remains a critical artery of trade to this day. Around five percent of cargo moved inside the U.S. is done so on river barges. The form of transportation is especially important to agriculture. From the Washington Post: