Barging and the planned extended river closure

Farm and Ranch December 23, 2009 The Pacific Northwest grain industry from farmers, to railroads, barges and exporters, are working to deal with an extended closure of the Columbia-Snake River navigation system in early 2011. Lock gate replacements at several dams and other repairs will close the river to traffic for up to 16 weeks beginning in December of 2010.

Rob Rich of Shaver Transportation, a barge operator, says barges can be used for downriver storage of grain.

Rich: “Well we are taking a look at the 80 barges that provide transportation on the Columbia-Snake River system. Those 80 barges account for approximately 9.1 million bushels of capacity. So we see a significant ramp up two weeks, and particularly one week before the closure, for loading all those barges and bringing them down to Portland. In the normal river closures, the two to three week closures that occur each year for normal operations maintenance, a percentage of those barges are left behind so that the upriver elevators can be loading during that closure. At this time, we see the barges all being brought down to Portland and the Kalama, Longview area, because that capacity is going to be needed down in the Portland area.”

Rich says the shutdown will mean the loss of 60 percent of Shaver Transportation’ business but for other operators it’s 100 percent of their business. He says however it is better to get all this work done at once rather than have extended closures over several years.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.