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A 2019 Agribusiness Consulting report found that in 2017, more than half of boats and barges on the Mississippi River were delayed at locks and dams, up from about one in five in 2000.
Around 175 million tons of freight travels on the Mississippi River each year, and from the river’s headwaters to southern Illinois, a series of locks and dams guide barges through the journey.Traffic is only increasing, but the locks and dams have aged far past their life expectancy. Even functioning properly, they slow barges down, and shippers and commodity groups fear a worse infrastructure breakdown is on the horizon.