Barge Owners Say Drought May Wipe Out Mississippi Gains
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Barge operators on the Mississippi River say the worst drought in 80 years may put at risk gains from emergency dredging and rock removal aimed at keeping the nation’s busiest waterway open at least for this month.
“The only way that we could maintain a navigable channel would be releases from the Missouri River system” if Mississippi conditions worsen, Scott Noble, a senior vice president for Ingram Barge Co., said yesterday at a meeting in southern Illinois. That option is “probably not very likely,” he said later in an interview.