Lack of river traffic has reader wondering what happened
Dec. 22—Dear Answer Man: I live along the Mississippi River and noticed recently that I haven't seen any barges moving up or down the river recently. What happened? — New River Resident.
Dear Resident,
What you've witnessed happens every year along the Upper Mississippi River. As the weather cools, barge traffic along the Mississippi River comes to a halt. In the not-too-distant future, ice will begin to form on Lake Pepin.
Lake Pepin, the largest lake on the Mississippi River, is a place where the river widens and the flow of the water slows down,
allowing the surface to freeze. Eventually this winter, that ice will get to be a couple of feet thick. Walking across Lake Pepin will be possible. Heck, by mid-January you could practically drive a semi across Lake Pepin. But that's not the mode of commodity transportation we're talking about.
According to the helpful folks at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, the 2023 navigation season unofficially ended Nov. 23, after the Motor Vessel W. Red Harris departed St. Paul, heading south on the river. That meant the navigation season lasted a little over eight months, starting on March 12 when — with thin ice still littering the surface of the lake — the Motor Vessel Philip M. Pfeffer broke its way through the ice on its way to St. Paul.
As part of its work to maintain a 9-foot navigation channel on the river, the Corps maintains and monitors the action act the various locks from St. Paul down to Guttenberg, Iowa. That includes locks and dams in Hastings, Red Wing, Winona and LaCrescent in Minnesota.
Picking a lock and dam from Southeast Minnesota, we'll look at Lock and Dam 5 near Winona, where 1,450 commercial navigation lockages were supported during 2023, which is below the 10-year average of 1,606 lockages. Still, that equates to about 6 million tons — an estimated 3,429 barges — of commodities shipped. This compares to 1,456 commercial lockages and 6.4 million tons of commodities in 2022 at Lock and Dam 5.
Commercial navigation continues in the Lower Mississippi River region south of St. Louis, Missouri, but as the weather gets colder here, the threat of having a barge stuck up north is too great, and all those boats pushing barges comes to an end.
Sometime in February, the Corps will begin taking ice measurements on Lake Pepin to determine when the ice has thinned enough that, once again, a brave boat can break through the ice and start a new navigation season once again.
At that point, look for those barges to ply the waters of the Upper Mississippi River and Lake Pepin once again.
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