Drought lowers Great Lakes levels, stifles shipping

The severe drought in the Midwest has lowered levels in the Mississippi River and in Lakes Michigan and Huron, stifling the shipping industry that depends on them. According to the Army Corps of Engineers, the lakes are down almost a foot from last year, and in the next few months could break a record low set in 1964. (Associated Press photo: Freighter passes port re-opened after dredging)

Water levels near ports on the lakes determine how much coal, iron, grain and other cargo can be shipped, Joe Barrett and Caroline Porter of The Wall Street Journal report. "This is very much an industry where inches count," Lake Carriers' Association Vice President Glen Nekvasil said. He told Barrett and Porter that lower lake levels means ships are carrying about 1,200 to 1,500 fewer tons per load, a loss that is very hard to recover.

Low water also highlights the need for more dredging of ports to keep them clear of sediment, the reporters write. The Corps of Engineers has identified at least $200 million worth of dredging needs in the lakes' channels and harbors. (Read more)

Drought expands slightly; weather patterns indicate little or no relief should be expected in early 2013

The worst drought in more than 50 years has expanded slightly for the third consecutive week, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Exceptional drought, the most severe category, now covers 6.2 percent of the U.S., up from 6.1 percent last week. All levels of drought increased to 64.2 percent from 63.4, the highest percentage this year.

There were "minor improvements" in the Midwest, Northeast, mid-Atlantic, Arizona and the Great Basin, Brian Sullivan of Bloomberg reports. Drought has caused corn and soybean prices to rise as the size of harvests shrunk, creating hardship for livestock and dairy producers who could no longer afford feed. It has also caused Mississippi River levels to drop in some places, making river travel difficult to impossible. (Read more)

Relief from drought conditions may be years away. Iowa State University extension climatologist Elwynn Taylor said the La Nina weather pattern causing the drought will likely stick around through early 2013. An El Nino pattern that would bring enough rain to quench U.S. soil isn't anywhere on the horizon, Jeff Caldwell of Agriculture.com reports. "If weather patterns respond to a neutral or to an early 2013 development of La Nina," Taylor said, "it will be likely that the U.S. corn yield will fall below the 30-year trend line for a fourth consecutive year." (Read more)

Texas water authority cuts off supply to rice farmers due to drought, and rural economies suffer

Rice farmers in southeastern Texas are switching from growing that water-intensive grain to crops that require less water, mostly because the Lower Colorado River Authority cut off water for most downstream farmers for the rest of this season so the city of Austin could recover from drought, Ashley Price of the Austin American-Statesman reports. As a result, rice production in rural counties along the river has fallen drastically. It's down by 75 percent in Eagle Lake, and has decreased to 1,500 acres this year compared to 24,000 acres last year in Matagorda County. (Wikipedia map: Lower Colorado River watershed)

Austin-based LCRA is the "chief arbiter" of who gets water and who doesn't, and the move to cut off water for downstream farmers was perhaps an inevitable move, Price reports. If the drought continues into 2013, those farmers could be cut off again. LCRA adopted stricter guidelines this February that reduces the amount of water released to farmers while almost doubling the amount for cities and power plants.

Most rice farmers aren't feeling the pinch, because their fields are insured, but the consequences of a "no-rice year" are reverberating in rural towns whose economy is tied to the crop's production, Price reports: "The woman who sells diesel oil for farm equipment; the pilots who eke out commissions spraying fungicide from tiny duster planes; the chicken farmer who buys rice hulls, the protective layer of the grain, for litter; the calf-cattle rancher who buys the bran, the hard outer bit that gets polished off when rice is made white, for cattle feed -- these people all find business is off as the rice crop has dwindled." (Read more)