The upper Mississippi River fully reopened to boat and barge traffic this week for the first time since November as shippers scrambled to move a backlog of overdue fertilizer barges to farmers racing to sow corn before the end of the month.
Some fertilizer shipments had been parked on river banks near St. Louis and further downriver for more than two months as the worst Midwest flooding since 1993 shuttered locks and triggered shipping restrictions on the flood-swollen waterway.
The U.S. Coast Guard lifted its shipping ban in the Mississippi River’s St. Louis harbor on Wednesday for the first time since May 2. For the full story, click here.
