Caledonia Argus

Locks shape river commerce

Posted: 9/2/03

by T.W. Budig
ECM capitol reporter

Eleven locks and dams safeguard the nine-foot navigational channel in the Mississippi River as it courses through and skirts Minnesota.

Within the metro, locks allow barge traffic above St. Anthony Falls into north Minneapolis.

The Upper and Lower St. Anthony Falls locks combine to lift river traffic some 50-feet over the natural obstacle of the falls.

From Lock No. 2 at Hastings to the navigational headwaters in north Minneapolis, river traffic is buoyed some 100 feet.

The four metro locks are part of a larger 29-lock system built and maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the Upper Mississippi.

Congress in 1930 set in motion construction of the current lock system as part of the nine-foot channel provision in the Rivers and Harbors Act.

Basically, the system was built within ten years.

The Lower and Upper locks at St. Anthony Falls, finished in 1956 and 1963, respectively, were among the last completed.

Although commercial vessels have plied the Upper Mississippi for more than 150 years ó the steamboat ìVirginiaî reaching St. Paul in 1823 ó river commerce has flowed and ebbed.

On-going attempts have been made at promoting it.

According to an U.S. Army Corps of Engineer history, Congress in 1878 and 1907 authorized channel projects on the Upper Mississippi.

Of more interest perhaps was congressional action in 1899 directed at improving navigation between St. Paul and Minneapolis.

This resulted in the construction of a 30-foot high dam and lock ó Lock No. 1 ó built five miles below St. Anthony Falls and the oldest lock on the Mississippi River.

Completed in 1917; a $45 million refurbishing of Lock No. 1 was finished in 1983.

Construction of Lock No. 1 resulted in the submergence of earlier lock constructed short years earlier upstream at Meeker Island.

The old Meeker Island lock in Mississippi Gorge is now a candidate to the National Register of Historic Places.

Still, for all the activity, commerce on the Upper Mississippi was boom and bust.

Loggers sent some five million tons of logs and lumber downriver from St. Paul in 1892 alone, but with the end of logging era commerce fell into lassitude.

River commerce between St. Louis and St. Paul declined to about one million tons after World War I and didnít rebound until the 1940s, according to the Corps.

It has been the spectre of economic stagnation that brought Midwestern lobbyist to Washington to push for navigation projects.

Over the years, commerce on the Mississippi has increased.

In 2002 in Minnesota, some 14 million tons of barge freight was carried on the rivers.

Almost 11 million tons of this total entered or left metro ports ó about 3.4 million tons came through the ports of Winona and Red Wing.

All told, some 90 million tons of commerce now moves on the Upper Mississippi River annually, according to the Army Corps.

Still, the Minnesota river tonnage is dwarfed by the volume of Great Lakes shipping.

Some 59 million tons of freight went through Minnesota Lake Superior ports in 2002.

As might be expected of a massive federal project that has dramatically altered the environment, the lock and dam system has provoked fierce debate.

Critics have charged that besides injuring the environment, the lock system represents a vast, costly subsidy to the barge industry.

According to the publication ìMississippi River Revival,î six big businesses ó Cargill Inc., Archer Daniel Midland Co., among them ó own half of the 20,000 barges plying Americaís inland waterway.

A 1998 Forbes Magazine article notes the 20 cent per gallon fuel tax towboat owners pay covers about ten percent of the $674 million annually the corps spends building, operating and maintaining its locks.

Dean Rebuffoni, a Sierra Club club volunteer and former environmental reporter, quipped that only NASA provides a more subsidized form of transportation.

Rebuffoni asserts the fuel tax paid by barge operators constitutes more of a business investment than fee.

ìNot a penny of that goes for operational costs,î said Rebuffoni, noting the fuel tax goes for new capital projects.

ìWho benefits from that ó the barge industry,î he said.

University of Minnesota Prof. Jerry Fruin, Extension Service economist, said besides meeting the needs of Midwest agriculture, the lock and dam system lends predictability to the river.

ìOtherwise weíd be walking across the Mississippi in St. Paul in August and swimming for our lives in March,î he said.

That same argument is heard in towboat pilot houses on the river.

One recent controversy that reflected poorly on the Army Corps of Engineers dealt with proposed lock improvements on the lower Mississippi River.

At issue is the proposed lengthening of 600-foot locks as to allow 1200-foot barges to enter without needing to split apart, sending the barge through the lock in sections.

Delays of a day or more at some lower river locks are not uncommon, according to one towboat pilot.

According to media reports, the Corps spent $54 million to study the problem only to have senior officials, not liking what the study indicated, try to cook the books.

A corps economist was told to make the study numbers fit the desired go-ahead outcome and eventually blew the whistle.

In December of 2000, U.S. Army officials issued a report backing economistís allegations about the proposed $1 billion lock project.

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