By TIM ALEXANDER

Illinois Correspondent

PITTSBURGH, Pa. — Ice accumulations that plagued much of the Midwest inland waterways system are also wreaking havoc with barge commerce in the eastern United States, with ice jams 20 miles long reported along the Allegheny River near Pittsburgh.

Allegheny County’s chief of emergency services recently issued a flood warning for the area out of concern for the miles-long jam, which has caused localized flooding, property damage and the complete icing-over of a lock and dam, according to the Valley News-Dispatch.

The recent ice accumulations have caused delays in barge shipments of agricultural goods, and could continue to affect shipments for an extended period. Weekly grain tonnages along the Mississippi, Illinois and Ohio rivers were 63 percent lower – at 496,000 tons – during the first two weeks of January than during the same period last year, reported Mike Steenhoek, executive director of the Soy Transportation Coalition (STC).

“According to the USDA, ice accumulation on the Illinois River has reduced the number of upbound empty barges to 10 for the week of January 13. During the same period last year, 180 upbound empty barges were shipped on the Illinois River,” Steenhoek said in a Jan. 19 email.

“A number of barge companies have continued to suspend operations on the Illinois River and portions of the Ohio River until conditions improve.”

Whenever barge transportation becomes more encumbered, the results are disproportionately passed on to farmers, he noted. “If there is a supply chain disruption and logjam along the river, soybean and grain shippers that utilize the inland waterway system are less able to move product via their back door.

“If a soybean and grain shipper cannot move product via their back door, they are less able to accept product via their front door. As a result, soybean and grain shippers will drop the price offered (i.e. basis will be widened/more negative) to farmers. Therefore, farmer profitability will be impacted not because they did anything wrong, but simply because the supply chain is not operating as expected.”

Warmer weather had begun to creep into the Midwest by the second half of January, leading to a resumption of regular operations by some barge companies; however, ice accumulations can have prolonged effects on the agricultural supply chain, Steenhoek explained.

“I anticipate soybean and grain shippers will be contending with this for a number of weeks,” he said. “Given that 80 percent of soybean exports depart from the U.S. between September and February, this is a critical period for our supply chain to be operating as normal. Any impediment, like the ice accumulations, (has) a negative impact.”

As temperatures began to warm in the east, the National Weather Service (NWS) issued a flood warning leading to volunteer evacuations in communities along the Kiski River, also near Pittsburgh. Allegheny County Emergency Services, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency are monitoring conditions on the Kiski, which leads into the Allegheny River before emptying into the Ohio.

The Pittsburgh NWS has established an ice jam observation page in order to keep the public informed of river conditions, which were still dynamic at press time.

In Illinois, a colder and snowier-than-normal first two weeks of January precipitated extended closures of barge traffic up and down the Illinois River, including at Peoria. The statewide average temperature was 16.5 degrees Fahrenheit, 7.3 below normal, according to Jim Angel, state statistician for the Illinois Water Survey.

“Last year, by mid-January the average (precipitation) was 0.82 inches,” Angel said, adding that some areas of northwestern Illinois received up to 5 inches of snow during the same period.

“So far our snow has come from a fast-moving low-pressure system out of Canada – so-called Alberta clippers – that are noted for bringing light, fluffy snow without much water content. Last year, some areas in northern Illinois had received zero snowfall in the first half of January and many areas reported less than an inch.”

Grain accounted for 30 percent of the commodity value distribution, the most of any commodity, on barge traffic on the Illinois River and the Illinois-bordered stretch of the Mississippi River during 2014, according to Army Corps statistics. Petroleum, at 29 percent, ranked second in average commodity value distribution.