Midwest’s Rivermen Swim Against Current

Bent against gusty winds and drenched by freezing drizzle, deckhand Sam Hull lugs coils of cable and rope across the slippery deck of the J.L. Fleming.

For 12 hours of a night shift, Hull and deckhand John Hendon pace tow barges around the port of St. Paul, along the northernmost navigable stretch of the Mississippi River.

From the rattling engine room, Hull looks out at the misty gray river and smiles. The Capitol is no more than a haze in the distance. “There’s a lot of simple pleasures to get out of this,” he shouts.

Eagles nesting in the shadowy banks. Deer sipping river water at dawn. Stars falling, on nights clearer than this. “That’s what keeps you going.”

Hull’s job and those simple pleasures are a small part of the past, and present, of river transportation in the Midwest. Its future, however, depends on whether industry leaders or environmentalists gain control of the majestic Mississippi.

Hull steps over corn spilled on the deck--part of a $2.5-billion commodity trade winding downstream through the Twin Cities, eight months each year, to New Orleans and beyond to Asia.

Economists and farmers say better barge transportation is necessary to reach such global markets. They support lock and dam improvements proposed by the Army Corps of Engineers, a $1-billion modernization effort to speed barges on their way.

Environmentalists say barges and locks and dams do more than that: Such systems speed destruction of natural habitats. So they oppose the project, also citing a whistle-blower’s allegations that the corps altered his figures to favor the renovation.

“Do I anticipate problems? Yep,” says Lee Nelson, president of Upper River Services, the only harbor service company left in the St. Paul port. It operates the Fleming and eight other towboats.

Tim Harp, the Fleming’s pilot, is 49 and has worked on the river for more than half of his life. For the past nine years he’s been on the 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift.

Harp seldom lets his eyes wander from the dark bends of the river. Only the narrowest passages through the shallow water interrupt his radio chat with other pilots --those left from the days of towboat races, before, in Harp’s words, the river was forgotten.

By 1997, Upper River had become the sole barge company at the end of the 857 navigable miles of the Upper Mississippi that stretch from Minneapolis to Cairo, Ill. The shakeout started in the late 1980s, as trains carried more and more coal.

Rail is one reason that the Mississippi’s lock-and-dam system does not need improvement, conservationists say. They argue that trains can absorb increased farm production. But supporters of modernization say that a gallon of fuel can carry a ton of cargo 514 miles by barge, compared with 202 miles by rail and 59 miles by truck.

On this spring evening, as the Fleming plows the black waters that reflect lights from cars and trains, the boat connects to a history beyond its 30 years.

The river may be the earliest mode of commercial transportation. Around AD 900, the Mississippi carried Indian trade. Settlers brought business upstream after white explorers discovered the Upper Mississippi in 1673, and most Midwest farms in the 19th century were built with logs carried downstream.

While a strobe light catches sheets of rain, Harp searches for empty barges that need to be moved upriver to grain elevators west of the Twin Cities.

“Sometimes it’s kind of fun, like a jigsaw puzzle,” he says with a grin. Then he gently bumps an empty barge away from a parked tow, depositing it farther downstream and returning to pick up the one he needs.

Yet it’s dangerous. “There are very few people who’ve never fallen off,” Harp says. Hull fell overboard last summer. One Fleming deckhand, crushed in a tow years ago, is part of river lore.

It’s also grueling, with long hours made longer by frequent overtime that comes with unpredictable crew changes. “One of my goals is to only work 12 hours,” says Harp. Then he recalls how he once worked 37 consecutive days at the helm--under pressure that makes it tough to attract pilots and deckhands.

But Harp, Hull and Hendon love their jobs.

“When you work here for a year, it’s hard to get used to anything else,” Harp says. “It kind of gives you a freedom. I don’t think there’s any other job like this.”

Adds Hull, a deckhand for three years: “It gets in your blood pretty quickly.”

Hendon, 24, new this season, will soon become Harp’s son-in-law. His view? “It’s a good job if you want to settle down.”

Back to business, Harp opens the window to yell orders to deckhands below, ready to shift the tow’s direction. The wind moves empty 100-ton barges like sailboats.

Sometime past midnight, the tow slowly works its way toward the Cargill grain elevators, crowding wooded banks just below a bluff but a world away from the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the Mall of America.

“You read Mark Twain?” Harp asks. “You know it’s true what he says, you have to read the river.”

With its wind and currents, Harp will need to read the river again to clear the bends on the return trip, taking corn into St. Paul and voyaging downstream.

Around 1 a.m., the Fleming arrives at the elevators. More work awaits: assembling an eight-barge tow and lashing it to the boat.

“The river never stops,” Harp says.

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On the Net:

Industry:

https://ribb.com

Army Corps:

https://www.mvr.usace.army.mil/pdw/nav_study.htm

Environmentalists:

https://www.amrivers.org/mississ.html