Two weeks ago, the supply chain almost ran aground in the Mississippi River. Thanks to drought and low water, more than 2,000 barges were backed up, delaying shipments of products ranging from corn to coal. The impacts were large: During the first week of this month, barge shipments of corn were down 50 percent compared with the same time last year.
Meanwhile, barge shipping rates reached their highest levels on record, pushing shippers to seek out more expensive and polluting rail cars and trucks. Consumers, already reeling from inflation, are to pay the tab.
Fortunately, the barge jam eased, but users of the US’ most important inland waterway cannot simply sail on. Thanks to climate change, the Mississippi’s natural cycles of drought and flooding are becoming more volatile, and weather events are becoming more extreme. Reversing these trends is as difficult as reversing the river itself. Adapting to them should be a priority.
Illustration: Yusha
Lock and Dam No. 1 spans the banks of the Mississippi roughly halfway between Minneapolis and St Paul. On a recent Saturday I stood atop the observation deck. The water was low downriver, thanks to drought across the upper Midwest, exposing sandy riverbanks. Upriver, toward Minneapolis, a tourist boat spread a wake across the placid waters behind the dam.
A century-and-a-half ago this stretch of the 3,701km river was filled with invisible impediments like sandbars, prone to floods and changes in direction. In the 1820s, the US Congress began funding Mississippi River “improvements” to enhance its navigability.
The nearly 1,126km of river between Minneapolis and St Louis, known as the Upper Mississippi, were an early focus. The river drops 128m over that stretch. To manage it, the US Congress authorized a lock and dam system that functions as a staircase down the river, creating placid pools that ease navigation. It starts at Lock and Dam No. 1, and concludes at St Louis’ Lock and Dam No. 27, the busiest cargo structure on the Mississippi.
The economic benefits are immense. In 2020, more than 500 million tonnes of cargo worth US$70 billion moved down the river on barges, enabling farming and manufacturing economies. Food led the way: Sixty percent of feed grains exported from the US leaves through southern Louisiana.
However, it is not just food. Low-cost, low-profile bulk products fundamental to the US economy, such as cement, fertilizer and fuel oil, also move down the river. By using barges, shippers not only save money, they also reduce emissions associated with transport. One Mississippi river barge can carry the equivalent of 16 rail cars or 70 large semi-tractor trailers. Those trucks emit 371 percent more carbon than an inland barge for every kilometer that a tonne of cargo moves.
Yet the accommodations to shipping on the Mississippi River have never been a uniform social and environmental success. Changes in the river’s flow contributed to loss of habitat for a range of species, including fish and birds. Accumulating evidence also suggests that the dams, walls and levees designed to tame the river into an orderly highway could be contributing to an increase in flood risks.
No form of shipping, no matter how well engineered, is immune to extreme weather events. Droughts and floods were regular occurrences on the Mississippi before locks and dams.
However, thanks to climate change, those weather events are becoming more common and extreme up and down the river basin. Increasing heat plays an obvious role in drought. It also has a role in creating a wetter climate. A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture and delivers it in shorter bursts, often leading to flooding events. According to data from the US’ National Weather Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, parts of the Mississippi River Basin are receiving 20cm more rain per year compared with half a century ago.
Meanwhile, between 2002 and this year, the Mississippi experienced seven major flood events — in 2002, 2008, 2011, 2014, 2016, 2019 and this year.
Even if the climate was static, the US is overdue to invest in the Mississippi’s aging infrastructure. Some of the locks and dams are more than 50 years old and past their designed life spans.
When I visited Lock and Dam No. 1, the US Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the facility, was holding an open house to solicit comments on its future. Among the options being discussed was whether it should be closed, or possibly dismantled, to return the river to a wild state.
The latter option seems unlikely even on the little-traveled section of the river above St Paul. Among other problems, bridges and municipal water systems are designed for a controlled river. Any changes to the river’s management would require assessing and adjusting for potential impacts on surrounding infrastructure and land.
Nonetheless, there are tangible steps that can be taken to adapt the Mississippi to a new climate. Investing in research to understand how the river is changing should be a top priority. Some studies are already taking place, but far more needs to be done, starting with an updated look at Upper Mississippi flood frequencies. The most recent report uses data from 2010, but updating it would cost less than US$3 million.
That is a pittance compared with the tens of billions of US dollars that drought and flooding have cost Mississippi River communities and businesses over the past three decades. Once complete, the data would be crucial to guiding efforts to reduce the impacts of climate change on shipping, locks and dams, and communities.
Finally, the US can no longer rely solely on concrete and steel to manage the river and its impacts. Conservation, especially of undeveloped flood plains, should be a key component of any climate adaptation program for the Mississippi. Similarly, the federal and local governments should incentivize Mississippi basin wetland restoration, which can reduce flood peaks by 29 percent.
Although none of these steps can fully prepare the Mississippi for the impacts of climate change, planning now can ensure that the US’ most important river remains a national asset, not a growing liability.
Adam Minter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asia, technology and the environment. He is author of Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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