In the News

For the third year in a row, extreme drought conditions in the Midwest are drawing down water levels on the Mississippi River. That’s increasing prices for companies that transport goods downstream, and forcing governments and businessowners to seek alternative solutions.

 

Extreme swings between drought and flooding have become more frequent in the region as climate change alters the planet’s weather patterns and increases the average global temperature.

 

“Without question, it’s discouraging that we’re in year three of this,” said Mike Steenhoek, executive director of the Soy Transportation Coalition, a trade organization representing Midwest soy growers. “Because that is quite unique to have multiple years in a row of this. We’re obviously trending in the wrong direction.”

 

Much of the Midwest has experienced some level of drought since 2022, with the driest conditions concentrated in Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska and Kansas. Record rainfall in June and during part of July this year temporarily broke that dry spell – but only for drought conditions to reemerge in recent weeks along the Ohio River basin. That area typically supplies more water to the Mississippi River than any other major tributary.

 

Water levels have been dropping in the lower Mississippi since mid-July, federal data show, reaching as of Sept. 24 almost 10 feet below the historic average in Memphis. In October 2023 water levels reached a record-low 11 feet below average in Memphis.

 

The conditions have increased prices for companies transporting fuel and grain down the Mississippi River. Load restrictions force barge operators to limit their hauls, which squeezes their profit margin. Barge rates from St. Louis reached $24.62 per 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 more than the same week the previous year and 57 percent more than the three-year average.

 

“It does change that supply-demand relationship,” he said. “Because now all of a sudden you’re having to transport a given amount of freight with less capacity.”

 

Aaron Wilson, Ohio’s state climatologist and a professor at The 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 become wetter through the decades. The Fifth National Climate Assessment, released in 2023, reported that annual precipitation increased by 5 percent to 15 percent across much of the Midwest in the 30-year period prior to 2021, compared to the average between 1901 and 1960. Evidence also shows the Midwest is experiencing more-frequent swings between extreme wet and extreme dry seasons, with climate models predicting the trend will persist into the future, said Wilson, who was the lead author of the assessment’s Midwest chapter.

 

“This was front and center for us,” he said. “One of the main things that we talked about were these rapid oscillations … between wet to dry and dry to wet extremes.”

 

Research also shows that seasonal precipitation is trending in opposite directions, and will continue to do so in the coming decades, he said.

 

“And so what you get is too much water in the winter and spring, and not enough during the growing season,” he said, referring to summer months.

 

That will have notable impacts on U.S. food exports.

 

Future shipping faces challenges

 

Transporting goods – including corn, soy and fuel – on the Mississippi River is more efficient pound for pound than ground transportation. That gives the United States 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-tractor trailers or 216 train cars. That means 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 River to reach the international market as farmers move crops to export hubs along the Gulf Coast, said Debra Calhoun, senior vice-president of the Waterways Council.

 

“More than 65 percent of our national agriculture products that are bound for export are moving on this inland waterway system,” she said. “So this system is critical to farmers of any size farm.”

 

The ramifications could be especially harmful to the soy industry, Steenhoek said, because about half the soy grown in the United States is exported. 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. By the last week of August, grain exports transported by barge decreased 17 percent compared to the week before, according to the USDA.

 

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 have since created 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.

 

Calhoun said disruptions to river transportation this year haven’t been as bad as they were in 2023, when the Mississippi River’s water levels reached record lows. Several barges were grounded then and in 2022, she said, referring to when boats get stuck on the riverbed or in areas where sediment has increased. That hasn’t occurred so far this year. That’s due to proactive efforts this year to mitigate transportation disruptions, by companies and by federal agencies like the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

 

George Stringham, chief of public affairs for the Corps of Engineers St. Louis District, said they started dredging the river a few weeks earlier this year.

 

“We started early to get ahead of things, in anticipation, after having two straight years of low water conditions,” he said.

 

Dredging involves moving sediment on the riverbed from areas where it can cause problems to boats, to areas where it won’t.

 

Wilson said he’s seen stronger cooperation among stakeholders in tackling the issue.

 

“It’s a mix of climate scientists, social scientists, and planners and emergency-preparedness folks that are really coordinating this effort,” he said.

 

Calhoun said the result is the coalition has been able to handle disruptions relatively well this year, which leaves her feeling cautiously optimistic.

 

“It’s really hard, you know, to track this and try to figure out is it just normal?” she said. “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.”