Missouri’s drought conditions could create problems moving fall harvest goods along the Mississippi River.
Dru Buntin, the Director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, says the state is closely monitoring the dryness, because it’s resulting in low river levels on the Mississippi River.
“We have negative stage on the Mississippi River in the St. Louis area,” he said. “What we heard is that’s down to negative 3.4 on the St. Louis gauge currently. They believe the navigation channel will stay open. They’ve got a dredging project that’s underway that would extend that to negative four.”
Low river levels affect the agriculture industry who use the waters to ship bulk commodities like grain, because it’s a cheaper transportation alternative versus using rail and roads.
“Because of the amount of bulk commodities that are shipped on the river and the amount of crops that are shipped for export on the river, we’re going to continue to monitor those conditions because we’re concerned about navigation over the winter,” said Buntin.
Missouri’s drought information and resources can be found at the Missouri Department of Natural Recourse’s website.
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