OMAHA (DTN) -- A failure at one of six focus locks in a new study would cost agricultural producers between $900,000 and $45 million depending on how long the lock was out of commission. A three-month lock closure on the nation's inland waterway system would increase the cost of transporting grains and oilseeds by $71.6 million, according to new study funded by the United Soybean Board and the checkoff's Global Opportunities program.

"Should a catastrophic failure of lock and dam infrastructure occur, agricultural producers -- and consequently the American consumer -- will suffer severe economic distress," the report stated. Barges carry 89% of the soybeans and 91% of the corn that U.S. companies export though the Gulf of Mexico each year.

A lock closure on one of the nation's main barge highways -- the Mississippi, Ohio and Illinois Rivers -- that lasted for three months would shift 5.5 million tons of grains and oilseeds to other modes of transportation, adding stress to congested highways and increasing railcar demand, driving up freight prices.

The 352-page study conducted by the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University took a lock-by-lock look at the inland waterway system. It estimated the economic impact on crop prices paid to producers and transportation costs incurred by shifting modes. It delves into detail on six focus locks and even identifies the crop reporting districts used by USDA and congressional districts that would see the biggest drop in commodity prices. It identified bottlenecks and tracked how long barges have to wait to pass through locks. (A PDF of the study can be found here: http://www.unitedsoybean.org/…)

If the LaGrange lock on the Illinois River failed, corn prices would drop $0.70 per ton and soybean prices would drop $2.45 per ton for the Illinois crop reporting district composed of LaSalle, McLean, Bureau and other counties in the state's 11th Congressional District (Note: this study uses current districts, not new districts that go into effect in ­the next election). Switching to rail and trucks would cost $4.3 million in that crop reporting district alone.

Most locks were built to last 50 years, and more than half of U.S. locks are older than that. More than one-third of the locks are more than 70 years old. Lock rehabilitation, another term for extensive maintenance and upgrades, can expand a lock's lifespan from 50 to 75 years, the study said.

Navigation outages have increased more than threefold since 2000, from about 25,000 hours to 80,000 hours on the Ohio River due to the wear and tear of age. Two locks failed recently: The Markland Lock was closed in 2009 for five months and the Greenup Lock in 2010 for a month.

The combined cost of rehabilitation and maintenance on the study's six focus locks totals $4 billion, but only $1.8 billion has been appropriated for the projects, according to the study. In the current budget environment, funding for large, multi-year infrastructure projects can be hard to come by.

"Delays and budget overruns have become so severe that they are causing other projects to lose funding or be delayed by a number of years," the study said, citing the Olmsted Locks and Dam project. The Olmsted Locks and Dam project on the Ohio River was first authorized by Congress in 1988 and has seen its estimated completion slip to 2014 and its cost balloon.

"The GO (United Soybean Board's and the soybean checkoff's Global Opportunity) committee invested in this study to calculate the impact of the worsening condition of the lock and dam system and what the impact would be on the rail and highway system if those locks failed," said GO committee chair Laura Foell, soybean farmer from Schaller, Iowa, in a news release. "It is important for all in the industry and in the public sector to have the information necessary to make informed decisions when it comes to investing in our locks and dams."

The models used in the study also indicated that by 2050, tonnage of crops shipped by truck and rail will increase by 5.5 million and 9.6 million tons, respectively. Tonnage transported by barge is projected to drop by nearly 15 million tons, reflecting a lack of investment in waterways.

"It is important that we have a robust transportation system," Foell said. "Only by using a combination of the lock and dam system, rail system and truck system can we continue to move our products in a manner that will help us feed the world."

Katie Micik can be reached at katie.micik@telventdtn.com

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