Page 20: of Marine News Magazine (March 2022)

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Feature

Inland Waterways

Blessey Marine Services

By Barry Parker aterway traf? c is coming back. No- 25% rise from June 2020. Data in a presentation by The vember 2021 saw 52.1 million tons Waterways Council Inc (WCI), also using USACE data, moving on the U.S. inland water- showed overall tonnage, in 2019, of 514.9 million short way system, the highest monthly tons, with petroleum and products leading (with 150 mil- tonnage since October 2019, a few lion tons), followed by coal (95.6 million tons), aggregates

W months before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and (81 million tons) and grains (77 million tons). the shutdowns and stoppages of early 2020. Flows estimat- During 2021, selected barge grain movements (moving ed by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), part through key locks, approximately half of overall tonnage of the U.S. Department of Transportation, based on data shown above) were down slightly from the previous year, from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) show a according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Decem- 20 | MN March 2022