Excerpt:
"The ports on the Mississippi transport more tonnage in and out of the Mississippi River system than any other place in the world," Michell says as he takes a break at a pilot station at the southernmost part of Louisiana.
"If Southwest Pass shuts down for any extended period of time it's going to have a ripple effect both on international markets and domestic markets up and down the (Mississippi River) valley."
The Mississippi River transports more than half of US grain exports, along with oil, chemicals, coal, timber reaching a total of 500 million tons of cargo each year.
There were still no signs of oil here on Monday, 11 days after an estimated 210,000 gallons (795,000 litres) a day of crude began streaming from the wellhead below an offshore rig which sank after a massive explosion that killed 11 workers.
Ships have also managed so far to skirt the worst of the ever-growing slick as they make their way out of the Gulf of Mexico.
But the mood is tense at the ship pilot station, where men whose families have made their livelihoods on the river for generations are on alert for the first signs of what is expected to be an ecological and economic disaster.
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