This lock and dam opened shortly after the Flood of 1993, replacing a structure that was worn beyond repair.
Following the steamboat era, new transportation methods were introduced for commerce to the rivers in the early part of the 20th century. Parts of the Mississippi River were too shallow for these loaded barges to navigate.
Congressional authorization and legislation provided for a 9-foot channel with a minimum width of 300 feet be provided for commercial traffic.
An integrated system had to be devised. A series of 29 locks and dams were built in the form of a staircase making navigation possible between Minneapolis, MI and St. Louis, MO. This successful project began in the 1930s but is now outdated for modern navigation and the structures are virtually worn out.
Although environmentalists say there is less commerce on the rivers, river statistics disagree. At the Melvin Price Lock and Dam 80.5 million tons were locked through in 1990 compared to 48.7 million tons in 1970.
Locks and dams are not free passage for commerce. The barge lines actually pay for the use of the lock and dam system when they pay a 20% tax on the fuel they use. Pleasure craft also use the locks as they navigate the river.
There are no locks and dams between St. Louis and Cairo as it is dependent on the convergence of the Missouri River to provide 60% of the river’s flow to maintain the 9 foot deep channel.
Barges were halted on both the Missouri River and the Mississippi River a couple of years ago when environmentalists forced the Missouri River’s flow to be cut due to the nesting of the least tern, the piping plover birds as well as pallid sturgeon fish species. The necessary 9 foot channel could not be maintained. Did this action violate a law made by Congress?
There is a desperate need to update the lock and dam system on the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers. Although this action is supposed to be in the works, visibly nothing is happening. Half of the $2.4 billion requested would be paid by the barge industry through the Inland Waterway Trust fund.
There were reports that a payoff to the environmentalists of $5.3 billion in taxpayer’s dollars is to be spent on continuing environmental projects along the rivers to meet their demands before approval could be gotten for the lock and dam projects.
There was no mention environmental groups would help with any of the funding of their projects although river commerce is paying half of the cost of the lock and dam updates.
The Izaak Walton league recently announced that “few proposed bills in Congress fail the laugh test as thoroughly as those now being considered in both chambers to pour billions of dollars into wasteful construction projects on the Upper Mississippi River. At issue are similar bills proposed by Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) and Representative Don Young (R-AK) that would authorize funding for lock construction projects on the river. Sen. Bond’s bill, S. 728, would approve about $2.5 billion for construction of seven new locks on the Mississippi River, while Rep. Young’s version, H.R. 2864 allocates $3.3 billion for similar work.”
One barge is equivalent to 58 large semis. One 15 barge tow equals 2.25 100 car unit rail trains or 870 large semis.
If you put 870 semis bumper to bumper, you would take up 11.5 miles of highway. Consider the traffic congestion and pollution saved by the barge industry and then try to figure the environmentalists' thinking.
It is difficult to understand why there are those who fight against the updating of the locks and dams, but the answer came to me as I was visiting with a lovely Mennonite family taking the tour of the Melvin Price lock and dam.
We have lost our work ethic.
Our homes are a shambles while the kids rule and we no longer focus on the basics of life. It is a new spouse, a new house, a new car, designer clothes, the big leagues and parties. We think everything is “owed” to us. We no longer understand the mental and physical benefits of physical labor.
This former Pennsylvania family of eight had the most polite and courteous children one could wish for. They were extremely well mannered. "Nanny 911" was not needed here.
As I visited with the mother, she shared one of her greatest concerns for her children’s future would be they would retain their work ethic.
She knew she could teach them to raise a garden, can their food, raise and butcher their meat, to sew their clothes, but could she instill in them the desire to do the hard work this requires?
This family exhibited what we as a nation have lost. They are disciplined and self-sufficient. Hard work is their friend as it teaches many lessons.
The children were not abused nor did you hear these parents raise their voices. The children listened intently as the guide explained the operation of the locks and dams. When their father asked questions, the children were eager to hear the answers given by the tour guide. It was obvious the children respected their parents.
It dawned on me that the opponents to the lock and dam projects continually give the mantra of recreation, recreation, tourism, tourism, environmental, environmental, but when have we heard them talk about “work?”
If our economic bubble should burst, would we continue to hear from this group or would they have to find a real job doing physical work? Would they even know how to be self-sufficient?
The people who see the need for updating the locks and dams are the people who are common laborers.
They are the farmers raising the commodities, they are coal miners, they are the deck hands, as well as those who work in the many warehouses and grain elevators along the river. They work in the industries of bulk commodities and petroleum products.
They work in scrap iron, iron, steel, fertilizers, sulfur, cement, aluminum, sugar, molasses and many other physically demanding jobs that has built America and made it strong.
They understand our nation would be nothing without the utilization of these raw materials.
Without the sweat from the silent majority of hard working blue collar laborers, the elite environmentalists would be in trouble. As we see the strength of America waning and our jobs going overseas, we need to renew the work ethic we have lost.
Unlike the Mennonite family, we have failed our children and grandchildren by not teaching them the tools needed to be disciplined and self sufficient.
Instead of parking the kids in front of the TV, the computer or the latest version of Playstation, we should equip them with a garden and a hoe. We should be teaching them to sew and to cook from scratch. If we taught them as we should, there would be no time for them to get bored.
We train our children to be self indulgent and then wonder why we have a generation of undisciplined, pleasure seekers making decisions for the “greater good.”
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Source: http://illinoisleader.com/columnists/columnistsview.asp?c=26720