Change can even be observed during a winding float down the Mississippi. Not just the shoreline as the water seeks it's high or low level, or the markers as currents relocate them from their assigned positions. The change we've been noticing most this trip is economic in nature. One observation is that there are many more single barge tows carrying petroleum products.
Not sure if its crude, or refined, or what, but the multiple levels of pipes and values and hazardous material and flammability signs give a clue to the potential volatility of its contents.
Another clue of economic change is that there is much more sand being hauled around. In years past, you could always come across an Army Corps of Engineers dredge pumping sand up from within the shipping channel into a barge that would be hauled away to a sand island. These islands would grow in height as the barges deposit their contents, with the sand concurrently leveled somewhat by dozers. Later they become great playgrounds for boaters and their children.
Today you can observe the reverse of that process. A commercial dredge is burrowed into a man made pond in the center of one of these sand islands. There it pumps a slurry of sand through a pipeline to an off-shore barge that uses a paddle-wheel arrangement to load the sand onto a conveyor that fills a river barge. That barge is then hauled to a loading station - in this case just next to the marina in Alma. The sand is unloaded from the barge onto a conveyor and onto shore. The sand is then front-end loaded into dump trucks that haul the sand to a railroad loading station and on to North Dakota.
The final evidence is in the trains that travel along the river on both east and west shores. The percentage of cars carrying what I presume to be crude oil is phenomenal. Each of the crude trains has hundreds of newly fabricated black tanker cars. It makes you wonder if anything else is being shipped by rail.
It's the oil business that's changed the economy of the whole area, with plenty of evidence right on the river.
Not sure if its crude, or refined, or what, but the multiple levels of pipes and values and hazardous material and flammability signs give a clue to the potential volatility of its contents.
Another clue of economic change is that there is much more sand being hauled around. In years past, you could always come across an Army Corps of Engineers dredge pumping sand up from within the shipping channel into a barge that would be hauled away to a sand island. These islands would grow in height as the barges deposit their contents, with the sand concurrently leveled somewhat by dozers. Later they become great playgrounds for boaters and their children.
Today you can observe the reverse of that process. A commercial dredge is burrowed into a man made pond in the center of one of these sand islands. There it pumps a slurry of sand through a pipeline to an off-shore barge that uses a paddle-wheel arrangement to load the sand onto a conveyor that fills a river barge. That barge is then hauled to a loading station - in this case just next to the marina in Alma. The sand is unloaded from the barge onto a conveyor and onto shore. The sand is then front-end loaded into dump trucks that haul the sand to a railroad loading station and on to North Dakota.It's the oil business that's changed the economy of the whole area, with plenty of evidence right on the river.
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