Mississippi Today
Another Midwest drought is causing transportation headaches on the Mississippi River
For the third year in a row, extreme drought conditions in the Midwest are drawing down water levels on the Mississippi River, raising prices for companies that transport goods downstream and forcing governments and business owners to seek alternative solutions.
Extreme swings between drought and flooding have become more frequent in the region, scientists say, as climate change alters the planet’s weather patterns and inches the average global temperature continually upwards.
โWithout question, it’s discouraging that we’re in year three of this. Because that is quite unique to have multiple years in a row of this,โ said Mike Steenhoek, executive director of the Soy Transportation Coalition, a trade organization representing Midwest soy growers. โWe’re obviously trending in the wrong direction.โ
Since 2022, much of the Midwest has experienced some level of drought, with the driest conditions concentrated in Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska and Kansas. Record rainfall in June and during part of July temporarily broke that dry spell, forecasters say, only for drought conditions to reemerge in recent weeks along the Ohio River basin, which typically supplies more water to the Mississippi than any other major tributary.
Water levels have been dropping in the lower Mississippi since mid-July,ย federal data show, reaching nearly seven feet below the historic average in Memphis on Sept. 13. In October 2023, water levels reached a record-low -11 feet in Memphis. Remnants of Hurricane Francine, which madeย landfall in Louisiana Wednesday night as a Category 2 storm, โwill provide only temporary relief,โ the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a news release Wednesday.
โRainfall over the Ohio Valley is also not looking to be widespread and heavy enough to generate lasting effects and anticipate that much of the rainfall will soak into the ground with little runoff,โ the agency said in the release.
At the Vicksburg, Mississippi, gauge, the river has dropped from 28 feet in July to just four feet on Sept. 13. For reference, the flood stage in Vicksburg is 43 feet. NOAA projects that the river level there will only climb up slightly, to about seven feet, over the next couple weeks.
Those conditions have raised prices for companies transporting fuel and grain down the Mississippi in recent weeks, as load restrictions force barge operators to limit their hauls, which squeezes their profit margin. Barge rates from St. Louis reached $24.62 a ton in late August and $27.49 per ton by the following week, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Steenhoek said barge prices during the first week of September were 8 percent higher than the same week last year and 57 percent higher than the three-year average. โIt does change that supply demand relationship,โ he said, โbecause now all of a sudden you’re having to transport a given amount of freight with less capacity.โ
A river in flux
Aaron Wilson, Ohio’s state climatologist and a professor at Ohio State University, said the whiplash between this summer’s record wet months and September’s drought conditions appears to fit what could be an emerging climate trend observed by researchers.
The Midwest region has generally gotten wetter over the decades. The Fifth National Climate Assessment, released last year, reported that annual precipitation increased by 5 to 15 percent across much of the Midwest in the 30-year period leading up to 2021, compared to the average between 1901 and 1960.
But evidence also suggests the Midwest is experiencing more frequent swings between extreme wet and extreme dry seasons, with climate models predicting that the trend will persist into the future, said Wilson, who was the lead author of the assessment’s Midwest chapter.
โThis was front and center for us,โ he said. โOne of the main things that we talked about were these rapid oscillations โฆ between wet to dry and dry to wet extremes.โ
Research also suggests that seasonal precipitation is trending in opposite directions, and will continue to do so in the coming decades, Wilson added. โAnd so what you get is too much water in the winter and spring and not enough during the growing season,โ he said, referring to summer months.
If that evidence holds true, it could have notable impacts on U.S. food exports moving forward.
Future impacts on shipping
Transporting goods, including corn, soy and fuel, on the Mississippi is more efficient pound for pound than ground transportation, business groups say, and gives the U.S. an edge in a competitive global market. According to the Waterways Council, a trade association for businesses that use the Mississippi River, a standard 15-barge load is equivalent to 1,050 semi trucks or 216 train cars โ meaning domestic farmers and other producers can save significant time and money moving their goods by boat.
The majority of U.S. agricultural exports rely on the Mississippi to reach the international market, as farmers move their crops to export hubs on the Gulf Coast, said Debra Calhoun, senior vice president of the Waterways Council. โMore than 65 percent of our national agriculture products that are bound for export are moving on this inland waterway system,โ she said. โSo this system is critical to farmers of any size farm.โ
The ramifications could be especially harmful to the soy industry, Steenhoek said, since about half of the soy grown in the U.S. is exported. By the last week of August, grain exports transported by barge fell 17 percent compared to the week before, according to a Thursday report released by the USDA.
Steenhoek said the increased costs to U.S. growers hurt their ability to compete globally. Any price increase to domestic grain could encourage international clients to instead buy from rival countries like Brazil or Argentina, he said.
While it’s typical for water levels on the Mississippi to drop during the fall months, Steenhoek said, the recent years of drought have been a real wakeup call for farmers to diversify their supply chains. Soy growers, he said, have since set up new supply chain agreements with rail lines and have even invested in new export terminals in Washington state and on the coast of Lake Michigan in Milwaukee.
Luckily, Calhoun said, disruptions to river transportation this year haven’t been nearly as bad as they were last year, when the Mississippi’s water levels reached record lows. Several barges were grounded last year and in 2022, she said, referring to when boats get stuck on the riverbed or in areas where sediment has built up. That hasn’t occurred so far this year.
She chalks that up to proactive efforts this year by companies and federal agencies, like the Army Corps of Engineers, to mitigate transportation disruptions.
George Stringham, chief of public affairs for the Corps’ St. Louis District, said they started dredging the river a few weeks earlier this year. โWe started early to get ahead of things, in anticipation, after having two straight years of low water conditions,โ said Stringham. Dredging involves moving sediment on the riverbed from areas where it can cause problems to boats to areas where it won’t.
Wilson, Ohio’s climatologist, said he has seen stronger cooperation among stakeholders in tackling this issue. โIt’s a mix of climate scientists, social scientists and planners and emergency preparedness folks that are really coordinating this effort,โ he said.
The result, Calhoun said, is that their coalition of groups have been able to handle the disruptions relatively well this year, which leaves her feeling cautiously optimistic. โIt’s really hard, you know, to track this and try to figure out is it just normal? Is it getting much worse? Are we going to have to make significant changes, and if so, what would they be? But we’re not there yet,โ she said.
This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation.
Missississippi Today environmental reporter Alex Rozier contributed to this report.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Crooked Letter Sports Podcast
Podcast: New Orleans sports columnist and author Jeff Duncan joins the podcast to talk about his new Steve Gleason book and the new-look New Orleans Saints.
Jeff Duncan went from the Mississippi Book Festival in Jackson on Saturday to Jerry World in Dallas on Sunday where he watched and wrote about the Saints’ total dismantling of the Dallas Cowboys. We talk about both events and also about what happened in high school and college football last weekend and what’s coming up this weekend.
Stream all episodes here.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1899
Sept. 18, 1899
Scott Joplin, known as โthe King of Ragtime,โ copyrighted the โMaple Leaf Rag,โ which became the first song to sell more than 1 million copies of sheet music. The popularity launched a sensation surrounding ragtime, which has been called America’s โfirst classical music.โย
Born near Texarkana, Texas, Joplin grew up in a musical family. He worked on the railroad with other family members until he was able to earn money as a musician, traveling across the South. He wound up playing at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893, where he met fellow musician Otis Saunders, who encouraged him to write down the songs he had been making up to entertain audiences. In all, Joplin wrote dozens of ragtime songs.
After some success, he moved to New York City, hoping he could make a living while stretching the boundaries of music. He wrote a ragtime ballet and two operas, but success in these new forms eluded him. He was buried in a pauper’s grave in New York City in 1917.
More than six decades later, his music was rediscovered, initially by Joshua Rifkin, who recorded Joplin’s songs on a record, and then Gunther Schuller of the New England Conservatory, who performed four of the ragtime songs in concert: โMy faculty, many of whom had never even heard of Joplin, were saying things like, โMy gosh, he writes melodies like Schubert!’โ
Joplin’s music won over even more admirers through the 1973 movie, โThe Sting,โ which won an Oscar for the music. His song, โThe Entertainer,โ reached No. 3 on Billboard and was ranked No. 10 among โSongs of the Centuryโ list by the Recording Industry Association of America. His opera โTreemonishaโ was produced to wide acclaim, and he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his special contribution to American music.ย
โThe ragtime craze, the faddish thing, will obviously die down, but Joplin will have his position secure in American music history,โ Rifkin said. โHe is a treasurable composer.โ
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Insurance chief Chaney hopes Mississippiโs homeowner rates are stabilizing
Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney says he is hopeful that the homeowner insurance rates that have spiked in recent years are now beginning to stabilize.
Chaney said he is hopeful that legislation passed during the 2024 session that provides grants to help homeowners put more wind resistant roofs on their homes will help lower the cost of premiums. He said the Legislature placed $5 million in the program.
โWhile this will help launch the program, the Legislature will need to provide additional annual funding well above this amount so that the program can provide the necessary benefits to reach a significant number of policyholders across our state,โ Chaney said via email.
While homeowners’ insurance rates in Mississippi have risen significantly, the increases have been less than in many surrounding states, according to various studies.
Chaney said his agency, which regulates the insurance industry in Mississippi, has received requests for double digit increases.
โWe worked with companies to consider less than what their indicated need was โฆ We feel that rate pressures will begin to stabilize along with inflation. Some companies that requested rates over 15% last year are now seeing a much lesser need โ many are now in single digits,โ Chaney said.
Inflation and the frequency of severe weather causing insurance claims are the two primary reasons for the increases in the homeowners’ insurance rates, according to Chaney.
Earlier this year the U.S. Senate issued a report addressing the rising costs of homeowners insurance premiums. The Democratic majority cited weather associated with climate change as the primary reason for the increase. Republicans discounted climate change and blamed the increase on inflation.
According to data compiled by Insurance.com and updated this month, the average cost of a policy for a $300,000 home in Mississippi is $3,380 per year, which is $779 or 30% above the national average.
The cost in Mississippi, though, is lower than many other Southern states. For instance, the cost in Louisiana is 38% above the national average and 52% above the national average in Arkansas. Florida is 70% above the national average while Texas is 48%. Other Southern states — Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky — are below the national average.
Realtor Magazine in May cited a report from Insurify, a virtual insurance company, saying, โThe states with the highest home insurance costs are prone to severe weather events. Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi are vulnerable to hurricanes. Texas, Colorado and Nebraska face a growing wildfire risk. Nebraska, Texas and Kansas are at high risk for tornadoes, being located in an area nicknamed โTornado Alley.’โ
Chaney said there are two types of processes for how insurance companies get rate increases. He said Mississippi is โa prior approvalโ state where the companies must receive approval from the regulator before an increase can be enacted. Other states –file and use states โ allow the company to enact the increase before receiving approval.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
-
Mississippi News Video5 days ago
Woman arrested after reposting school threat in Calhoun County
-
News from the South - Louisiana News Feed5 days ago
Food drive underway for Hurricane Francine victims in Kenner
-
Mississippi Today2 days ago
On this day in 1925
-
News from the South - Kentucky News Feed4 days ago
The search for Joseph Couch intensifies
-
News from the South - Alabama News Feed2 days ago
Diddy Arrested In Manhattan | September 16, 2024 | News 19 at 10 p.m.
-
News from the South - Alabama News Feed4 days ago
Sylacauga Church welcomes Haitian migrants amid speculations
-
News from the South - Florida News Feed6 days ago
Tropics update: Tropical Depression 7, 2 other disturbances brewing in Atlantic
-
News from the South - Alabama News Feed5 days ago
Social media threat against Escambia County Public Schools not credible: ECSO