Push Made for River Infrastructure Improvements

March 13, 2000

Two major farm organizations want Congress to improve the infrastructures on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers. River congestion, inadequate locks and an inability to handle deep-water cargo vessels threaten a farm economy already beset with low commodity prices and farm income, they say.

C. Bryan Little, senior director, governmental relations, American Farm Bureau Federation, told the congressional Mississippi River Caucus the system "is increasingly taxed and is less able to meet the demand placed on it." Many of the facilities are 60 years old and inadequate to meet modern navigation needs.

Many locks are only 600 feet long, he said, when the average tow in use today is 1,100 feet long, including barges and towboat. "Long back-ups often occur during peak shipping seasons as each two must stop, be broken into two parts, pushed separately through the lock and reassembled on the other side," Little told the caucus.

"This is a process that takes about 90 minutes for each tow," he added. "This creates delays that cost the entire economy money and reduces the per-bushel price farmers earn for their produce. This congestion is costing our economy millions of dollars annually in lost time and productivity that a comparatively small federal investment in improved infrastructure could recover."

Congress must grant the U.S. Corps of Engineers a contingent authorization to begin constructing locks and dams on the system and improve the system soon "so farmers can go back to doing what they do best."

Soybean farmers already "have been squeezed out of international markets at least six months of the year as a result, at least in part, of infrastructure improvements in Brazil and Argentina that have allowed them to move their grain more cheaply," he added.

The National Corn Growers Association wants Congress to ensure that the Corps releases interim findings of its seven-year Upper Mississippi River-Illinois Waterway System Navigation Study immediately. NCGA also wants Congress to provide $14 million for the second year of design work on seven locks on the river system.