(The Associated Press circulated the following article on September 3.)
MINNEAPOLIS — The grain elevators that take in corn, soybeans and wheat from Midwest farmers and the railroads that move it are waiting to see what impact Hurricane Katrina will have on them.
More than half of U.S. grain exports go through New Orleans, and it remained unknown when the crippled port and its shipping terminals might reopen.
That means railroads and elevators don’t know whether grain that would normally go down the Mississippi River by barge will need to go elsewhere by rail or truck. Nor do they know how well the rail networks and other seaports would be able to cope with the added load.
“It’s just too early to try to answer those,” said Steve Forsberg, a spokesman for the Fort Worth, Texas-based BNSF Railway Co.
John Huber, a spokesman for the Canadian Pacific Railway Co., said, “We’re just going to be watching and monitoring.”
September and October are normally the region’s biggest export months for corn and soybeans, said Jerry Fruin, a professor at the University of Minnesota’s College of Agriculture and an expert on barge shipping.
If Mississippi River barge traffic cannot be restored within about two weeks, Fruin said, significant adjustments will need to be made for the new crop. Alternatives might include Pacific Northwest or East Coast ports, he said. And more grain may need to be stored longer on farms and in elevators.
But Fruin acknowledged there’s limited additional rail capacity.
Mark Davis, a spokesman for the Omaha, Neb.-based Union Pacific Railroad Co., said other ports will be able to handle some of the exports that would pass through New Orleans. But it will tax the system if current forecasts of a bin-busting harvest come true.
The Union Pacific is North America’s largest railroad, and Davis said it has historically shipped most of its grain bound for export through either Mexico or ports in the Pacific Northwest and Texas.
Likewise, Huber said, only about 10 percent of the Canadian Pacific’s grain traffic is normally bound for the Gulf of Mexico.
While there was significant damage to Jacksonville, Fla.-based CSX Corp.’s rail line between New Orleans and Pascagoula, Miss., its grain operations aren’t likely to face major disruptions, spokesman Gary Sease said. Most of CSX’s grain business connects farms in the Midwest with feed producers in the Southeast.