Cargo is slowly moving along the bloated Mississippi River after a costly daylong standstill, while officials keep an eye on the lower Delta where thousands of acres of farmland could be swamped by water that is inching closer to the top of a backwater levee.
The Coast Guard for much of Tuesday closed a 15—mile stretch at Natchez, Mississippi, north of New Orleans, blocking vessels heading toward the Gulf of Mexico and others trying to return north after dropping off their freight.
Barges that haul coal, timber, iron, steel and more than half of America’s grain exports were allowed to pass, but at the slowest possible speed. Such interruptions could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of millions of dollars for each day the barges are idled, as the toll from the weeks of flooding from Arkansas to Louisiana continues to mount.
Wakes generated by passing barge traffic could increase the strain on levees designed to hold back the river, officials said. Late Tuesday, barges were able to move again at the lowest possible speed, the costs of the slowdown hard to calculate.
Natchez Mayor Jake Middleton said he met on Monday with Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh and other officials when they discussed the river closing, the latest tough move to try to ensure the levees are not breached.
“You have two hospitals, a convention centre, a hotel and a spa on the Louisiana side. On our side, we have a restaurant and bar and several very old, historic buildings that we are trying to save,” Mr. Middleton said.
Coast Guard Cmdr. Mark Moland said tests indicated sandbagging and other measures to protect most of the area could withstand the wakes if the vessels were ordered to move through at the slowest possible speed. It’s not clear how long barges would only be able to move one at a time. The river is expected to stay high in some places for weeks.
Throughout the spring, the Mississippi is a highway for barges laden with corn, soybeans and other crops headed from the Midwest to ports near New Orleans, where they get loaded onto massive grain carriers for export around the world. The closure helped push corn, wheat and soybean prices higher on Tuesday.
Traders, however, are more worried that flooded acreage won’t be replanted with corn, said John Sanow, an analyst with DTN Telvent.
On a typical day, some 600 barges move back and forth along the Mississippi, with a single vessel carrying as much cargo as 70 tractor—trailers or 17 rail cars, according to Bob Anderson, spokesman for the Mississippi Valley Division of the Army Corps of Engineers.
