Posted on 12/01/2012 5:14:26 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
It’s an issue that has plagued states along the Mississippi River for months and has now landed squarely on the desk of President Obama: how to prevent the imminent shutdown of commercial traffic along the nation’s largest waterway.
A nationwide drought, the worst to hit the U.S. in decades, has lowered water levels along the river, threatening barge traffic.
White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Thursday that the President raised the issue with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack at Wednesday’s cabinet meeting, directing his administration to take “every step to mitigate” the situation. Carney added that there are a number of “complex” legal and technical steps which can be pursued, saying the Army Corps of Engineers has taken “proactive” measures.
The biggest obstacle is jagged rocks jutting up from the bottom of the Mississippi which make it impossible for barges to move.
“The Corps needs to get in there and literally blow them up to get them out of the way or we will be either extremely limited or completely shut down some time between December 15 and December 30,” Senior Vice President of Regional Advocacy for the American Waterways Operators Lynn Muench said. “If we do lose the river between mid-December and January, the jobs that are at risk in Missouri are almost 3,000 jobs.”
Muench said she’s reached out to President Obama and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, mirroring an effort Thursday by Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster...
(Excerpt) Read more at stlouis.cbslocal.com ...
most likely whatever they to make Mississippi River transport better for the moment will have unintended consequences somewhere, sometime down the road when “normal” water levels and the usual flooding returns
Corps of Engineers fast?
A little known fact: Within six months of Hurricane Katrina, George Bush and the Corps had in place flood gates and bypass pumps at the lake end of the New Orleans outflow canals. These “temporary” structures, if operational at the time of Katrina, would have prevented the flooding of those portions of New Orleans flooded from the breaching of the outflow canal walls. The apparent cost of each structure was well within what could have been covered by any of the areas’ political jurisdictions. The political will to do what was necessary did not exist until the hard hearted “W” gave the thankless city this freebie.
What is the muslim Kenyan equivalent to the North American Indian rain dance??
Time to get Zer0 and the Mooch, along with momma Robinson and the two spawns out on a barge, and do their costumed rain chant.
All will be better once the Won solves all our problems.
Similar to the hollow statement Obama made Nov 14th on Benghazi, "I can tell you that, immediately after finding out that our folks are in danger, that my orders to my security team was to do whatever we need to do to keep our people safe."
One reason(the main reason): Liberals throwing up environmental issues to stop any such projects before they get off the ground. If they were truly interested in our water supply, and our energy supply as well, then they wouldn't stop desalinization plants and they wouldn't stop drilling.
“Just one very somple question”
And now we know the answer, unfortunately.
And just what would that "control" be for sirrah, if it wasn't for fun and profit at the expense of the masses? Hmmm?
Excuse me, but you don't know whom you are addressing, so cut with the condescending "instruction." Nothing you wrote is unknown to me in the general case. What I posted to you isn't just some blanket theory of mine; I've written two books dealing with regulatory resource racketeering as relates to the UN Agenda 21, with which I was dealing directly in my local County government in 1994 on the first Local Agenda 21 initiative in the United States on the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Management Roundtable. In the first of those books, I documented how local air pollution, zoning, and "clean water" laws were drafted and manipulated, by whom, for whom, and why, having tracked 14,000 real estate transactions over thirty years. I have spoken at Henry Lamb's Freedom21 conferences. I own the first business method patent in free-market environmental management. So there you go, intoning to me at a kindergarten level not having even bothered to look up a FReeper page first.
Twelve years on this site and the pompous laziness and ignorance of posters here just keeps getting worse.
Droughts suck. And the barge traffic hasn’t recovered from the floods of a few years ago.
I complain a lot about the Corp of Engineers, but they do have a hard job. Between the EPA and the politicians, it becomes impossible.
Is this like his taking every step and cutting the red tape to help the people on Staten Island?
No, it's not.
Bush's fault. Obama was in Vegas.
This year is strange. It’s almost 60 degrees F here in Boise right now. Two years ago it was probably 16 degrees outside on the same date.
When was it, last year??, that the Corps blasted open dikes in SE Mo to allow the flooding Mississippi to flow into the Mo lowlands to save the city of Cairo from the flooding. Now the river is getting low enough for those exodusing the great city of Egypt to cross into Mo on dry ground.
The EPA will find some rare and endangered slug in the area and forbid any blasting ... after a 5 year study
Ha...! Explosive coffee spray, thanks.
Typically if the water is that shallow the troublesome rocks would be cofferdammed around enough to expose the tops at least, then rock-drilled and blasted into small enough pieces for the dredge to pick up. No really large explosions required-——just “stitch “ lines across the high spots and turn them into gravel. Some where a room full of geniuses is wishing they’d done this decades ago assuming the rocks are the actual problem and not the result of some previous half-assed flood control project.
900-mile-wide hurricane floods the East coast, and not one drop of it reaches the Mississipi?
Not very well.
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