美国国家公共电台 NPR Months Of Flooding On Mississippi River Marooned Midwest Trade

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

A lot of agriculture in the Midwest depends on rivers to cheaply move grain and other farm products to market. But this year, high water has already stranded¹ barges³ on the upper Mississippi River for nearly three months - the longest time in recorded history.

As part of our series on this wet summer, Illinois Newsroom's Madelyn Beck reports on the fallout from these record-high river levels.

MADELYN BECK, BYLINE⁴: River barges are enormous. One standard barge² holds as much as 58 large semitrucks. And in early June, about 640 barges floated to a standstill near American Commercial Barge Line's office outside Cairo, Ill.

MARK GLAAB: That's just me. That's not the other fleets in the area. That's just ACBL.

BECK: That's Mark Glaab, the facility manager there. His boats push these barges full of salt, grain, fertilizer and steel up and down the river.

GLAAB: I get three or four calls a day with people wanting to be able to unload their barges here into trucks or into trains, because we can't go on the river until the water goes down. I got plants in Chicago running out of product.

BECK: The problem isn't the barges, it's the locks and dams. Locks are the mechanisms⁵ that raise or lower a boat to get it through a dam. When river levels are too high, they're not safe to operate, so barges can't get where they need to go.

And there's another problem. Barges can't unload in some places where they're stuck - places like Cairo, Ill., which doesn't have a port, so goods can't be offloaded onto trains or trucks. This could be a growing problem as water levels trend upwards⁶ and barges are kept waiting longer.

GLAAB: The only difference this year is the length of time. But it seems to get worse every year.

BECK: Glaab says that 75% of recorded river crests⁷ at Cairo have happened since the '80s. So high waters could conceivably encourage city planners to try and build more ports to get stranded products off the river. And that could give rural places like Cairo a boost - a town with about 2,000 people, no grocery stores and no gas stations.

Larry Klein heads the port authority there and is a fourth-generation Cairo resident.

LARRY KLEIN: I've seen it in its heyday⁸, and I've - I see it today. And, well, it hurts. I want to stay around and say that I knew the people that helped get us back on the right track.

BECK: While barges and supplies were trapped going upriver, thousands of tons of grain like corn and soybeans were waiting to head downriver to be shipped overseas. And while trucking and rail were an option for some, that's too expensive for most farmers. All they could do was wait.

Greg Guenther farms near St. Louis, and he says the river closure costs him in ways that are hard to calculate. Like many others, he still has grain to ship from last year. If grain is stored for too long, its quality drops along with its value. When the Mississippi was flooding, river terminals stopped buying his corn to send downriver.

GREG GUENTHER: And then that corn sitting in the bin⁹ is money that's waiting to be utilized¹⁰ that is drawing no interest. And it's costing you in electricity and everything else to keep it in condition.

BECK: Add to those issues low commodity prices, trade challenges and extremely heavy rains affecting thousands of farmers across the Midwest. Guenther hopes this barge issue increases awareness¹¹ of needed water infrastructure¹² upgrades, long overdue¹³.

GUENTHER: If we had a more efficient river transportation system, when these events happened, when we finally - we're able to get going again, it would really make things a lot smoother and cost everybody a lot less money.

BECK: While the Mississippi River system does have problems, it also makes U.S. agriculture globally competitive. It's cheaper to ship on water than on land. But that water may become an even harder force to tame as massive rainstorms cause it to peak and flood more often.

For NPR News, I'm Madelyn Beck in Galesburg, Ill.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHEQUERBOARD'S "THE SORROW BIRD"

1 stranded   

a.搁浅的，进退两难的

参考例句：

• He was stranded in a strange city without money. 他流落在一个陌生的城市里， 身无分文，一筹莫展。
• I was stranded in the strange town without money or friends. 我困在那陌生的城市，既没有钱，又没有朋友。

2 barge   

n.平底载货船，驳船

参考例句：

• The barge was loaded up with coal.那艘驳船装上了煤。
• Carrying goods by train costs nearly three times more than carrying them by barge.通过铁路运货的成本比驳船运货成本高出近3倍。

3 barges   

驳船( barge的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The tug is towing three barges. 那只拖船正拖着三只驳船。
• There were plenty of barges dropping down with the tide. 有不少驳船顺流而下。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 mechanisms   

n.机械( mechanism的名词复数 )；机械装置；[生物学] 机制；机械作用

参考例句：

• The research will provide direct insight into molecular mechanisms. 这项研究将使人能够直接地了解分子的机理。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He explained how the two mechanisms worked. 他解释这两台机械装置是如何工作的。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 upwards   

adv.向上，在更高处...以上

参考例句：

• The trend of prices is still upwards.物价的趋向是仍在上涨。
• The smoke rose straight upwards.烟一直向上升。

7 crests   

v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的第三人称单数 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点

参考例句：

• The surfers were riding in towards the beach on the crests of the waves. 冲浪者们顺着浪头冲向岸边。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The correspondent aroused, heard the crash of the toppled crests. 记者醒了，他听见了浪头倒塌下来的轰隆轰隆声。 来自辞典例句

8 heyday   

n.全盛时期，青春期

参考例句：

• The 19th century was the heyday of steam railways.19世纪是蒸汽机车鼎盛的时代。
• She was a great singer in her heyday.她在自己的黄金时代是个了不起的歌唱家。

9 bin   

n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件

参考例句：

• He emptied several bags of rice into a bin.他把几袋米倒进大箱里。
• He threw the empty bottles in the bin.他把空瓶子扔进垃圾箱。

10 utilized   

v.利用，使用( utilize的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• In the19th century waterpower was widely utilized to generate electricity. 在19世纪人们大规模使用水力来发电。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The empty building can be utilized for city storage. 可以利用那栋空建筑物作城市的仓库。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

12 infrastructure   

n.下部构造，下部组织，基础结构，基础设施

参考例句：

• We should step up the development of infrastructure for research.加强科学基础设施建设。
• We should strengthen cultural infrastructure and boost various types of popular culture.加强文化基础设施建设，发展各类群众文化。

13 overdue   

adj.过期的，到期未付的；早该有的，迟到的

参考例句：

• The plane is overdue and has been delayed by the bad weather.飞机晚点了，被坏天气耽搁了。
• The landlady is angry because the rent is overdue.女房东生气了，因为房租过期未付。