What benefits are derived from the inland navigation system?
Our national inland waterway system carries some 630 million tons of cargo per year. 630 million tons of cargo equates to 420,000 barges. To move this cargo by alternative means would require an additional 24 million trucks on our nations highway system or an additional 6.3 million rail cars on the nations rail system. That is a considerable amount of traffic to add to either of these overburdened systems. A ton of cargo moved by truck can be carried 59 miles per gallon of fuel. By rail this figure jumps to 202 miles. But, by barge the figure jumps to 514 miles. River transportation is almost 10 times as fuel efficient as transportation by truck. Another point to consider is pollutants produced by movements of cargo. The primary pollutants are hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and nitrous oxide. The total pounds of these emissions per ton-mile of cargo are 0.13 for trucks, 0.03 for trains and 0.01 for towboats. That is, for 630 million tons of cargo mentioned above; trucks would produce 80
