For the second time in less than a week, barges drifted loose from a
Mississippi River tugboat in Baton Rouge on Friday, hitting the same bridge
struck in the previous incident — and highlighting the perils of allowing continued commercial traffic on this swollen, turbulent river. Though investigators have yet to determine the cause of the accident, veteran river pilots have said in recent weeks that the river’s record floodwaters have simply made it harder to navigate.
“The higher the river is, the harder it is because of the currents,” says
retired river pilot Charles Clasen, who was an apprentice pilot in 1974 when
the river level in New Orleans rose to 19 feet — just a foot shy of the
top of the levee. “If you’re coming around a short turn and don’t do it
right in a low river, it’s no big deal. In a high river, you can still
recover, but you have to be out there paying attention. There’s very little
room for error.”
Earlier in the week, the Coast Guard closed a 15-mile stretch of river
surrounding Natchez, Miss., because high water and wakes from passing barges
posed a pressure risk on the levees there. While the port in Natchez has
been reopened, barge and tug traffic is now tightly regulated. In Baton
Rouge, meanwhile, a five-mile stretch of the river has been closed until the
Coast Guard deems it safe for transportation.
“The Coast Guard is really between a rock and a hard place right now,”
Clasen says. “If they leave the river open and something bad happens — like a barge hitting a levee — then people will wonder why they didn’t
close the river. But if they close the river, then think about all the jobs
it will impact around here and what it will do to the economy.”
A river closure from Baton Rouge to New Orleans could cost the U.S. economy
at least $250 million a day, according to some estimates.
“Losing this river is a serious threat,” says Tulane University professor
Eric Smith.
The balance between levee safety and economic concerns have plagued every
decision made about the Mississippi River in the past week. A week ago, when
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers grappled with whether to open the Morganza
Spillway for the first time in 38 years, it was faced with the choice of
risking catastrophic flooding in New Orleans if it did nothing, or with
flooding the land of some 25,000 residents of Cajun country if it opened the
floodgates. The Army Corps opened the spillway once the river flow reached
1.5 million cubic feet per second, and residents of Baton Rouge and New
Orleans breathed a cautious sigh of relief as excess floodwater headed south
down the Morganza to the Atchafalaya Swamp.
Even as the Army Corps opened the Morganza, gate by gate, the river level
held steady, but remained perilously close to the levee tops in both cities.
Ship and barge traffic continued, although with the river flowing more than
seven times the speed of the Niagara Falls, some questioned whether it
should remain that way.
The Army Corps and Coast Guard are currently walking a tightrope over river
closure. Port of New Orleans spokesman Chris Bonura said the Corps had
assured port officials that by diverting water through the spillways, they
could keep river levels in the city below 18 feet. Anything higher than
that would force a river closure. The levees protecting New Orleans are 20 feet high.
If that seems to be cutting it close, port officials say the river can be
kept open if proper travel restrictions are in place. Right now, the Coast
Guard is asking vessels to go about 1 m.p.h. so that their wakes don’t boost
the already-churning currents. And, they’re requiring barges to stay at
least 180 feet from the levees as they work their way down the river.
Despite the latest close calls in Baton Rouge, it’s unclear how long the
river will remain closed there, or whether the port in New Orleans will face
a similar fate.
“After a close call, when you sit down and your heart gets out of your mouth
and goes back to where it belongs, you ask yourself, what could I have done
to prevent that?” Clasen says, reflecting on his years working the river.
“Sometimes you can pat yourself on the back. Other times you sit back and
ask yourself, what if? Other times, you realize you can have all the skill
in the world, but at the end of the day you were just plain lucky.”
With the Mississippi in its turbulent state, those making the call on
keeping it open to traffic know that they can’t rely on being lucky every
time.
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