Problems along the Mississippi river, a firsthand photo account.

scary pics considering the ole miss is half the countries life line for food. If everyone in the US went outside and did a rain dance, could we stop the droughts?

reply to post by headband75


Yes it is scary. A lot of people do not realize the importance of the river to not only the U.S. but the world.

A lot of goods make their way to the gulf to then head to other countries. Not to mention the dollars importance worldwide. The Mississippi is a life blood river.

Raist

Water release, rain and snow improve dangerously low water levels on Mississippi River

ST. LOUIS – A release of water from the Missouri River and recent storms are offering some relief for the Mississippi River, where water levels have been dangerously low.

The Mississippi River channel at St. Louis was roughly 12 feet deep on Thursday — up about a foot-and-a-half since Monday.

foxnews.com

This sounds like some good news, and it is even is mentioned on a MSM news website. However, if I had not read this thread, I would never have known that there was a problem with transporting goods on the Mississippi river. It seems like that would be kind of important, but that is probably why it is not on the news.

reply to post by PacificBlue


I hope it gives a large improvement. However, it will take a lot to start an improvement. It will likely be months before we see a noticeable improvement.

Of course the media is always ready to talk about the important stuff so you will not hear much about these problems.


Raist

That would not surprise me at all.

Originally posted by Raist
reply to post by whenandwhere

 

I did not think of them taking less fuel, but that does make sense.

Do you recall how far a barge gets on fuel (I guess sort of a MPG type of thing)?
Also since they are taking on less fuel are they having to make more stops or is that fuel getting them to their destination?


Raist

How much fuel used depends on many different variables so it would be hard to give you a definitive answer .

It would depend on engine size (Horsepower) , water level , loads of barges and how many barges they are towing and how hard the pilots/captains run the boat and the list goes on . For example the last boat I worked on held 35,000 gallons of fuel , in normal pool stage and towing your typical 15 barge tow , loads and empties , I would refuel the boat maybe twice a month . If the river is running brown (high water/flooding) , then that makes it a harder shove up river and we will burn more fuel . There are to many variable to give you a good , exact answer . But normally , a boat would probably take on fuel twice a month . We do not like them running to low for a couple of reasons , dirt and rust settles in the bottom of the tanks and the pumps would start sucking it up and clog the fuel filters and two , a boat that sets too high in the water is a pain to handle when running "light boat" (no tow of barges in front of it) . It lists to one side or the other and wallows around when making turns .

For example Back during the flood of 96' , I came on watch (a watch is a six hour shift) at the city front of my home town , we had to drop a string of barges off just a few miles up river from where we were at . We had 15 loaded coal barges , and what should have taken a little better than hour took us all of six hours to get to the fleet . The engines were screaming , the turbos whining and we were barely making any headway . We burnt several hundred gallons of fuel in those six hours .

We do not have fuel gauges on the boats like regular vehicles . The Engineer (which is what I was when I retired) will go around the boat , and measure the fuel left in the tanks with a measuring stick , sit down and subtract the new reading from the old reading and come up with how many gallons we used . For example , if the boat used 2 inches of fuel would mean we burnt 900 gallons of fuel for the day (this is not an exact number since boats vary in size and power) .

As for your other post concerning measuring the depth of the river between Locks and Dams , that would be the Coast Guard and even the tow boats themselves will report river depth as we not only have radar on the boats but most all have depth finders also .

I wonder about your alls water supply more than the shipping. Most of the area gets its water supply from the rivers where it then goes to a treatment plant.

reply to post by Raist


We often looked for arrowheads, pipes and pottery which was protected by water and mud when water is low ... also sinkers and lures too!

reply to post by whenandwhere


While there are a lot of variables to consider your post is very helpful. I was really surprised at the size of the fuel load a barge could hold. I am not sure what I expected but that was a lot more than I thought.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge of barges and the river. Even if things have changed a little and with variables it helps to clear some things up more.

Raist

reply to post by mrsdudara


I have heard nothing about water supply. The water treatment plant is not far from my house and I have not noticed any different activity around it (not even sure if there would be different activity though), and the news barely covers the river so they have not said anything about water supply.

Something else to consider, that had slipped my mind. I guess you get used to having water and forget that it could not be there some day.

Raist

reply to post by fnpmitchreturns


There is an excavation in Thebes of native artifacts on private land. My understanding is that the land owner makes a living from the artifacts. When I heard this I took it to mean that he sold them and was not interested in the historic or scientific value.

I never sell the fossils I find. I like to collect them, study them, and learn about the creature that was once alive. I have given some away to children so they could learn and traded a few for other fossils that I don't have a chance to get to otherwise.

Recently I have been finding a lot of petrified wood bits. Nothing large just interesting little pieces, one looks like a small piece of drift wood.

Raist

reply to post by Raist


I commented on your other post..

and S&F for this one.. !!! GREAT JOB~!

something struck me as odd.. in the pic that is posted on this thread of the backhoes loading semi trucks.. there what seems to be stright lines, indicating measured out slabs of rock for removal ..

yes ??

the other thing that keeps bugging me is, if their removing rocks, (I don't have time to read entire thread here, but, should have time later ) .. why remove the rocks to build up a section of the river that is lower..

1) what about the other sections that aren't lower .. are they becoming lower in lvl or same.. ?
2) why build up one section of the river.. ? (it's like they want to create another road here or .. something.. (?)
3) once the drought stops, assuming, then what .. ?? all that rock just stays there ??

your throughts ??

reply to post by Komodo


I think the straight lines you are talking about are the natural rock bedding/faulting. I have found out there are a few minor faults under the river in this location. I might be wrong but I think these are the straight lines you are talking about.

As for your other questions.
This is the lowest section of the river at this point; I assume they will move to other areas as is needed.
I like you assume that once the rocks are removed they stay removed. I am not sure what this will hold for the future of the river. From reading a link provided by another poster this will only add about 6 inches to the channel in the river where the barges are moving. I am not sure how 6 inches will help but it might prolong the closing of the river for a few days.

Also note that at this point they are not doing any blasting, there is talk about at some point blasting rock which might provide more depth than 6 inches.

Raist

A bit of an update the other day I posted that the river at Thebes was just below 4 feet. Today it is up to 6.35 feet.

I think this is due for the most part to rain and snow upstream.


Raist

It is good to see some improvement, although it may take a long time for the river to recover from a drought that is this severe.

This was an interesting article about boats that sank being uncovered by the low water levels.

Low water levels reveal history in Mississippi and Missouri rivers

reply to post by PacificBlue


The river has dropped two inches since yesterday. There is news of more snow heading this way so there might be hope for a few more inches to return.


Raist

reply to post by Raist


Since my last post just above this one the river has dropped one more inch at Thebes.

It is now at 6.02 feet.

Raist

reply to post by Raist


You guys will need more than a couple of inches, so I will be hoping that there is more snow or rain. It seems like just as soon as the water level might go up, it just goes back down. It will take a while to fill in all of the empty places, as now they will be very dry.

reply to post by PacificBlue


Today they are calling for 12+ inches of snow for this area. Sadly that will not do much for the river in this area, though it will likely help down stream from here.

Raist

reply to post by Raist


yah probably not, but it does use hundreds of thousands of gallons of water, so even if stealing upstream it would probably still impact the lower and knowing how companies like to save a buck....