River traffic up

An editorial in The Charleston (W.Va.) Daily Mail this weekend notes that truck traffic on the West Virginia Turnpike was up in March compared with March of last year, indicating a rebound of sorts in the economy. So, I wondered, what about the Ohio River locks?

I ran the numbers, comparing April 2010 with April 2009 and, for comparison with a recent good year, April 2006. I spent maybe an hour on it (I'm not getting any money from this blog, otherwise I could have spent all day building a database to answer questions I had). Here is how total tonnage at each Ohio River lock increased in April this year compared with April 2009.

Emsworth, 14.3 percent;

Dashields, 11.2 percent;

Montgomery, 29.2 percent;

New Cumberland, 27.3 percent;

Pike Island, 29.9 percent;

Hannibal, 20.3 percent;

Willow Island, 35.7 percent;

Belleville, 37.7 percent;

Racine, 34.9 percent;

RC Byrd, 43.5 percent;

Greenup, 22.1 percent;

Meldahl, 21 percent;

Markland, 22.7 percent;

McAlpine, 24.6 percent;

Cannelton, 27.4 percent;

Newburgh, 16.3 percent;

JT Myers, 16.3 percent;

Smithland, 19.6 percent;

L&D 52, 17.5 percent;

L&D 53, 32.7 percent;

Coal shipments are up over April last year, too. From Markland to Willow Island, tonnage is up 30 percent or more over last year.