Flooding Halts Shipping on Upper Mississippi River

Unusual June flooding forced locks to close Friday on the upper Mississippi River, shutting down shipping on a 215-mile stretch of river and stranding 56 towboats and their barges.

Utilities that rely on barges for coal said they had stockpiles and should not be hurt, but grain shippers were stuck.

The shutdown is expected to expand northward an additional 230 miles today and could last two weeks or more, officials said.

The shutdown could cause grain prices paid to Midwestern farmers to fall and prices paid by overseas customers at the Gulf of Mexico to rise, analysts said.

The flooding was caused by recent torrential rain in the Midwest. Parts of Wisconsin have received 10 inches of rain this month, and flooding caused an estimated $50 million in damage to homes, roads and crops.

In southeast Iowa, as much as 10 inches of rain fell Thursday afternoon. Minnesota has also had heavy rain, with 11 inches in some areas Wednesday.

The Mississippi is expected to crest seven feet above flood stage Sunday at St. Paul, Minn., below the river’s confluence with the swollen Minnesota River.

Sandbagging was under way in St. Paul, and a small airport was expected to close during the weekend. Officials with the Chicago & North Western Transportation Co. said the flood threat disrupted operations at the company’s South St. Paul rail yard.

The river is expected to reach 23 feet at Dubuque, Iowa, by Tuesday, six feet above bank full and the third highest since record-keeping started, the National Weather Service said.

River pilots had been warned at midweek that the rain upriver would close the lock-and-dam system, largely because water would get high enough to reach electrical equipment.

Cargill Inc., the nation’s largest grain company, had stopped loading its 50,000-bushel barges with corn and soybeans a week ago. Paul Dienhart, a spokesman for the Minneapolis-based company, said Friday that barges won’t resume loading for two to six weeks.

Bill Gretten, assistant chief of project operations for the Army Corps of Engineers’ Rock Island district, said nine of 12 locks between Dubuque and Hannibal, Mo., would be shut down within days. At least three locks upriver from Dubuque will also close, according to a spokesman for the Corps’ St. Paul district.