An expanded Panama Canal could mean a big boost in traffic for the U.S. inland waterway system. But not if the Mississippi’s aging locks aren’t repaired or replaced. With the Panama Canal expansion scheduled for completion in 2016, a lot of thought is being given to possible shifts in patterns for shipping containers in and out of the country. Once giant containerships begin sailing through the canal, East Coast port volumes are expected to rise, and ports are deepening and expanding their channels and installing large cranes necessary for unloading the bigger vessels. At this point, I don’t think anyone really knows how much volume will be diverted from the congested, labor-uncertain West Coast ports, but it should be significant. A recent study by C.H. Robinson and the Boston Consulting Group suggests that up to 10 percent of container traffic to the U.S. from East Asia could shift from West Coast ports to East Coast ports by 2020. In the Midsouth and Midwest, observers are particularly interested in what will happen at the Port of New Orleans. With a depth of 200 feet, this port is located on the deepest section of the Mississippi River and will have no draft issues. Port officials predict that container traffic will increase by about 7 percent initially. The question is, where do the containers go from there? The channel between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, La., is about 45 feet with a 50-foot depth at Baton Rouge. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for maintaining the country’s waterways, is considering dredging five feet from the lower Mississippi in order to accommodate large ships as far up as Baton Rouge. The projected cost is $300 million, but port experts believe the project could generate another 24 million tons of cargo […]