Editorial: National Maritime Center Program Needs Tweaking

Alexander Pope wrote, “Hope springs eternal in the human breast.”

That is what came to mind when we saw the announcement from the Missouri Department of Transportation saying that towing had returned to the Missouri River. The March 11 release said 6,000 tons of fertilizer in four barges, in tow of the Capt. Butch Bowman, was moving upstream toward AGRIServices of Brunswick, Mo., a terminal that handles fertilizer, salt, steel, coal and grain.

For more than eight years, Missouri River water transportation has been the victim of drought and critics who have filed endless environmental lawsuits in an effort to bring the industry down. Perhaps the morning brings a fresh wind and a new start. There is little or no quit in the industry, and MoDOT has teamed up with agriculture and shipping partners who want renewed life on the Missouri. MoDOT says they have formed a “unique partnership to increase freight shipping, create jobs and promote an environmentally friendlier way to transport goods.”

So perhaps this quote from an unknown author is also applicable: “Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.” For the rough and ready, achieving the impossible is just a little harder.

Bill Jackson of AGRIServices said, “We established our own barge services division when other providers moved off the river.” He says the Missouri River “is the best way to move freight.”

Dr. Ernest B. Perry, freight development administrator for MoDOT, said the goal of the partnership is to “increase the freight moved across these docks and onto the Missouri River, increase the connections to other transportation modes, and provide economic development opportunities along the river corridor.”

In a somewhat related release, the Northwest Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Omaha, has scheduled six public meetings in April to review the 2010 annual operating plan for the Missouri River main stem reservoir system. While these spring meetings are normal procedure, one must assume that efforts to renew and strengthen water transportation on the Big Muddy certainly will be part of the discussion when it comes to water releases.

Renewed and strengthened water transportation on the Missouri would offer considerable benefits. The Inland River Guide lists seven other public terminals. Jefferson City River Terminal Inc. at Mile 143 handles steel, fertilizer, coal, salt, grain, paper and lumber; LaFarge KC Terminal at Mile 147 handles cement; ConAgra International Fertilizer, Mile 196.4, handles dry bulk, grain, salt, fertilizer and molasses; Kansas City River Terminal, Mile 355.7, handles dry and liquid cargoes; MWT Bulk Services LLC, Mile 367, handles bulk, steel products and fertilizer; DeBruce Fertilizer Inc.–Steinhart, Mile 563, handles bulk fertilizer, steel, liquid fertilizer and fuel; and Kinder Morgan Bulk Terminals, Mile 616, handles general cargo, dry bulk, grain, liquids and steel.

If renewing and strengthening Missouri River water transportation seems an impossible task to some, let us not forget that long before the main stem reservoirs were built, back during the Indian-war days of Custer, steamboats carried people and cargo clear up into Yellowstone territory. It was a tough river to run back then. The long list of steamboats that sank on the Missouri attests to that. Steamboatmen of the time had to contend with river conditions and Indians that had held up progress of the railroads west of St. Louis and the Mississippi River. Today’s river conditions are different, but mariners face skeptics and critics and those who would prefer that the effort fail.

What we are seeing more than ever now is a broadened interest in improving water transportation because of the potential savings and the environmental friendliness of the mode. The state of Missouri is really getting into it—so much so that it started its own Twitter feed to track the movement of the fertilizer barges up the river. So far the page and its comments reflect high interest.

While we haven’t tracked the ups and downs of the Missouri River public terminals, we know the drought has wreaked havoc with at least some of them for the past eight years. If things go as MoDOT and river stakeholders hope, business will increase rapidly at those terminals and shippers will again be realizing considerable savings over other modes.

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