Marty Hettel’s barges at AEP River Operations use that river channel, which is 100 meters wide and less than three meters deep. But even that is forcing Hettel’s company to lighten its loads just to make it down the Mississippi.
“We are about 35 percent less efficient at this river stage than we are at normal river conditions,” Hettel said.
Hettel says the work done by dredges like the Potter is helping, but will not solve the problem. “To have any support for the river here, we need a good 10 days to two weeks of steady rainfall, and it’s not predicted. It’s just not there,” Hettel said.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers St. Louis District Commander Colonel Chris Hall agrees.
“It will take a significant amount of precipitation to bring those water tables, those aquifers, those systems back up to where we have typical river conditions,” Hall said.
“Droughts tend to continue for several years, so I don’t see this going away anytime soon,” Engle said.
Until it goes away, the work of the Potter is essential to the U.S. economy -- ensuring that the chief river of the nation's largest river system is wide and deep enough to handle the barges that carry hundreds of billions of dollars of goods each year.
最新
2013-11-27
2013-11-27
2013-11-27
2013-11-27
2013-11-27
2013-11-27