HOUSTON – The worst flooding across the Midwest in four years is disrupting everything from oil to agriculture, forcing pipelines, terminals and grain elevators to close and killing off thousands of pigs.
Fifty miles of the Illinois River have been closed, according to the U.S. Coast Guard, as well as 81 miles of the Mississippi River in two segments.
The flooding is the worst since May 2011, when rising water on the Mississippi and its tributaries deluged cities, slowed barge traffic and threatened refinery and chemical operations. The current situation increases stockpiles of crude oil and may extend this year's price slide.
Hog producers in southern Illinois are calling other farmers, hoping to find extra barn space to relocate their pigs, said Jennifer Tirey, executive director of the Illinois Pork Producers Association. Processors are sending additional trucks out to retrieve market-ready pigs, she said. In one case, an overflowing creek took out electricity and made roads impassable, causing 2,000 pigs to drown.
"There was no way to get the pigs out," Tirey said. "Honestly, it was just an act of God. That creek had so much rain."
So far, the biggest oil shutdown involves Enbridge Inc.'s Ozark pipeline, which was booked to carry about 200,000 barrels a day this month to Wood River, Ill., from Cushing, Okla. The outage of the section under the Mississippi River may further add to stockpiles at Cushing that reached a record high last week.
Spectra Energy Corp. shut the 145,000 barrel-a-day Platte oil pipeline between Guernsey, Wyo., and Wood River as a precaution because of the river's condition, the company said in an e-mailed statement.
On Wednesday, Ameren Missouri began ferrying employees to and from its Sioux Energy Center north of St. Louis. The coal-fired power plant is still operational and workers will continue to travel by boat until the floodwaters recede, the company said in a statement.
