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Mississippi River transportation still backed up Thursday, October 27, 2005
WASHINGTON (AP) But federal officials told the House Agriculture Committee on Wednesday they are making progress in getting conditions back to normal. "We remain optimistic that the river system can handle the grain movements, although we know it will be a more expensive year to ship grain," said Floyd Gaibler, a deputy undersecretary at the Agriculture Department. Hurricane Katrina damaged port facilities and contaminated hundreds of barges with rain and storm water, wreaking havoc on the river that carries 60 percent of the nation's grain and 70 percent of its corn and soybeans. As a result, there are not enough barges coming back upriver to carry crops. Meanwhile, hard-hit farmers are facing lower prices for farm commodities and surging shipping costs. Energy and fertilizer prices also have soared along with the price of crude oil and natural gas. Port facilities are operating at about two-thirds capacity, but remain plagued by a shortage of labor to unload barges and turn them around, Gaibler said. "There is a critical shortage of lodging facilities for barge crews in the southern area," Gaibler said. "Empty barges from New Orleans are not making their way back upriver quickly enough." The Agriculture Department has paid incentives to help move about 100 barges of damaged corn out of New Orleans to locations upriver. But Gaibler said around 250 such barges remain. Agriculture Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., urged Gaibler to make more resources available to clear the barges of damaged commodities and get them back in circulation. "If we have 250 barges that are idle and nothing being done to free them up, that is a problem that concerns me greatly," Goodlatte said. Farmers have suffered more than $1.7 billion in crop losses this year from the effects of hurricanes Katrina and Rita and a lingering Midwestern drought, according to Agriculture Department estimates. "The confluence of events on the Mississippi River is straining our transportation capacity at a time when we are about to harvest the second-largest corn crop in history," Goodlatte said. Leaders of the Army Corps of Engineers said the river should remain navigable despite low water levels due to the drought. Maj. Gen. Don T. Riley, director of civil works for the Army Corps, said dry weather could keep water levels low on the Mississippi River over the next six months. But he predicted they are unlikely to drop below stages reached earlier this year. If levels do drop, Riley said, the corps would continue to address the problems with dredging. Bob Dickey, president of the National Corn Growers Association, said problems along the river existed well before Hurricane Katrina. He urged federal officials to make more investments in the inland waterway system to keep pace with demands. "If we fail to move forward, the world will look elsewhere for basic food commodities," Dickey said. "That is something corn growers and farmers across the country cannot accept." |
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