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"We've got to stop subsidizing anachronistic industries like the barge industry," he says. "The barge companies would be out of business in a hot minute," Criss says, "if they had to maintain their own river channel and pay to use locks."
Several recent news stories have quoted shippers saying they cannot afford the cost of shipping by rail rather than by barge. "They're right," says Criss, "but only because the economics have been skewed by public policy: Railroads pay to maintain their own track."

“River engineering hasn’t controlled the river,” Criss says. “It’s created a monster; the river is more and more unpredictable each year.”
"We can pretend barges can move tonnage cheaper, but the system they use is subsidized by the taxpayer and costs us dearly," Criss says.
"I believe that good environmentalism is good economics," Criss says

The frequencies the Corps uses are on the left axis of this chart and the floods that actually occurred over the past 30 years are on the right.
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"We're living in an imaginary world," says Criss, "and not dealing with our problems realistically. We should be investing in things where there is an opportunity for growth in the future, and there is no possibility of long-term growth in sending bulk-tonnage materials halfway around the world."