SAVAGE, Minn. — Winter's approach brings an end to many things in the Upper Midwest, including shipping on the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers.
Our trusty drone takes us over Shakopee and the Minnesota River, where Minnesota-based Cargill was scrambling this week to get all remaining product on the water, over to the Mississippi, and headed south. Barges are loaded, grouped and then shepherded down the river by a tow boat.
Cargill tells KARE in the Air its fleet alone moves nearly 10,000 loads a year from St. Paul to New Orleans, with each barge capable of holding the equivalent of 70 semi-truck loads or 16 rail cars. The company moves about 100 different commodities downriver, including corn and soybeans. Those empty barges are then loaded to bring back things like road salt and fertilizer.
Due to ongoing drought, however, shippers like Cargill are watching the size of loads due to dropping river depth. In Minnesota and south to St. Louis, a lock and dam system allows for the management of water levels on the Mississippi, But the stretch below St. Louis to New Orleans has no human controls and fully loaded barges are in danger of running aground.
Bigger picture, MnDOT says more than 50 percent of the state’s agriculture exports are shipped via the Mississippi, making their way to the Gulf of Mexico. Products are then loaded onto oceangoing vessels and sent to destinations around the globe like China, Colombia, Japan, and South Korea.
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