24 THE CAAR COMMUNICATOR WATER the August 2023 issue of the CAAR Communicator online (https://caar.org/the-communicator/august2023/1811-canada-dry-and-not-the-good-kind). Because reduced water levels have affected the Lower St. Lawrence River on the upstream approach to the Port of Montréal, deep-draft sailing vessels approaching Montréal have been requested to sail at a reduced speed. One of the other solutions mentioned was to have the big vessels partially unload at the Port of Québec City or the Port of Halifax to reduce the draft and ensure a safer sail into the Port of Montréal. During the winter months, the St. Lawrence River section of the St. Lawrence Seaway from Montréal to Lake Ontario is scheduled to close around the end of December. But not this winter. Because of a week-long Seaway strike in October 2023, officials from the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation decided that it would close on January 5, 2024, “partially to help offset the impacts of the October traffic interruption as well as to support critical North American export activity, particularly of US and Canadian agricultural products, at the end of the shipping season.” That all sounds great, especially for our agricultural concerns here in Canada. However, keeping the Seaway open longer isn’t without its fair share of risks. According to John Peach, the Executive Director of Save The River, a grassroots advocacy group working to protect the Upper St. Lawrence River, keeping it open longer when it gets colder and icier can cause safety issues. “It’s much harder to operate safely out there in icing conditions. It’s colder. It’s harder for the people,” explained Peach. In a North Country Public Radio interview, Peach explained that ice tends to build up on the shoreline quickly, which means any spilled material could become trapped and be unable to be cleaned up until the melt. “If you have a spill and the contaminants, the pollution, get underneath the ice, there’s not good technology that’s out there on cleaning up underneath the ice,” he said. For the port or vessel workers, Peach noted that with the cold and icy weather, it’s difficult to launch a rescue craft to get responders to a ship. The January 5, 2024, closure date is the latest since the Seaway opened in 1959. In opting for the later closing date, the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation said they considered all possible safety and environmental conditions. In a statement, it said: “These include, but are not limited to, vessel safety, emergency response capability and coordination, weather and environmental conditions, water levels and water management, and domestic and international trade forecast models.” The Big Muddy Drought has virtually dried up the Mississippi River, where roughly two-thirds of our grain exports have historically been shipped on barges to the US Gulf, causing critical logistical issues. At 3,766 km, the Mississippi River is the second-longest river in the US, just behind the Missouri River by a mere two kilometres. A total of seven other rivers flow into the river nicknamed The Big Muddy: the Yukon River and Columbia River from Canada; the Milk River and Saint Lawrence River; and the Red River of the North, the last three of which begin in the US and flow into Canada; and the Colorado River and the Rio Grande, which begin in the US and flow into or form a border with Mexico. The land close to the river is one of the most fertile areas in the US. With so many farms nearby, the Mississippi River was rife with steamboats in the 19th and early 20th centuries, transporting industrial and agricultural goods to ports up and down it. However, we are sure that no one would be surprised to learn that the Mississippi River is experiencing drought-related issues. For communities along the mouth of the river, drought has allowed saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico to enter into water supplies. Some communities have found that their tap water was about 6.5 times saltier than the Environmental Protection Agency safely allows. Drought causing lower water levels on the river has exposed sand bars, making travel trickier than it should be. Most people are aware that the Mississippi River is the fictional home of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, two creations of author Samuel Clemens, whom the world better knows by his nom du plume, Mark Twain. In the world of Mississippi River sailing—especially 200+ years ago—sailors needed to ensure the water was deep enough for their vessel to traverse to avoid running aground on a sandbar or the shallows. As such, at the head of the vessel, a leadman would use a leaded weight and wire to ensure the
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