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Market Matters Blog 03/18 10:45
2024 Upper Mississippi River Shipping Season Opens as First Tow Arrives
The Upper Mississippi River shipping season officially opened March 17 as
the first tow arrived in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Mary Kennedy
DTN Basis Analyst
It couldn't have been more appropriate that the tow named Joseph Patrick
Eckstein was the first tow opening the Upper Mississippi River (UMR) 2024
shipping season in the wee hours of the morning on St. Patrick's Day!
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, reported on their
website that they locked the Motor Vessel Joseph Patrick Eckstein with 12
barges through Lock and Dam 2, on March 17 in Hastings, Minnesota, enroute to
St. Paul, Minnesota.
The St. Paul District considers the first tow to arrive at Lock and Dam 2 as
the unofficial start of the Mississippi River navigation season because it
means all its locks are accessible to commercial and recreational vessels. The
earliest date for an upbound tow to reach Lock and Dam 2 was March 4, in 1983,
1984 and 2000. The average starting date of the navigation season is March 22.
The latest arrival date in a nonflood year was April 4, 2008. Historic flooding
in 2001 delayed the arrival of the first tow until May 11, according to USACE
St. Paul District.
The USACE, St. Paul District, said on their website that, "Lake Pepin is the
last major barrier for vessels reaching the head of the navigation channel in
St. Paul, Minnesota. Located between the Minnesota cities of Red Wing and
Wabasha, Lake Pepin is the last part of the river to break up (ice) because the
river is wider, and subsequently, the current is slower there than it is in
other parts of the river. If a tow can make it through Lake Pepin, it can make
it to St. Paul. The Army Corps of Engineers measures ice thickness on Lake
Pepin throughout the spring to report to tow companies about the impending
ice-out."
However, this year, the Corps announced in mid-February, "The annual Lake
Pepin ice surveys are canceled this year due to unusually warm weather
conditions within the region, resulting in less ice than normal. The locks
remain closed, however, due to winter maintenance, currently scheduled to be
complete no later than March 15."
The "Joe Pat" worked its way upriver on March 16, pushing 12 barges after
Lock and Dam 7 opened at 6 p.m. CDT on March 15, once the winter maintenance
ended. Lee Klaproth, a Marquette Transportation Company, LLC captain, was on
board the Joe Pat training a steersman and said there were quite a few boats at
Lock 7 waiting to move up to St. Paul.
Klaproth sent me a message saying they reached Lock and Dam 2 at Hastings,
Minnesota, at 12:30 a.m. CDT on Sunday, March 17, and headed to St. Paul where
they would be dropping all the barges above the Pig's Eye Railroad Bridge,
located southeast of the Holman Field airport in downtown St. Paul.
Meanwhile, the wait is now on for the "other" 2024 shipping season to open
in the Port of Duluth-Superior. The grain shipping season there begins when the
first saltie (ocean-going vessel) reaches the Twin Ports. The Soo Locks are
scheduled to open three days earlier than planned on March 22 thanks to the
warm winter and the end of winter maintenance. The first saltie of 2023 made it
to Duluth on March 28, 2023.
Navigation through the St. Lawrence Seaway itself will also begin March 22
with the opening of the Montreal-Lake Ontario section, which includes the St.
Lawrence River and Welland Canal.
Mary Kennedy can be reached at mary.kennedy@dtn.com.
Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, @MaryCKenn.
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