The air horn on the tug Itasca blew long and loud on a sunny late March afternoon, signaling the unofficial opening of the 2008 river-shipping season in the Saint Paul harbor.

With about 20 people aboard for the annual outing, the tug cruised the Mississippi River in downtown with officials taking turns sounding the horn and trying to steer the large boat under the watchful eye of Lee Nelson, president of Upper River Services, the company that moves barges between river terminals.

“I don’t want to go that way,” Saint Paul City Council President Kathy Lantry, who also serves as a Saint Paul Port Authority Commissioner, said as the boat moved toward shore while she maneuvered its lever controls. “Why don’t you get boats with steering wheels?”

Nelson, with his hands on a backup set of controls, said the levers of the Itasca could move the tug sideways; something a steering wheel could not. The tug is one of eight that his firm will have in operation when the shipping season is in full swing. Upper River Services leases space for its operations in the Port’s Barge Terminal No. 2.

Each year, Nelson takes representatives of the state’s transportation and agriculture departments, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Audubon Minnesota, the City and the Port on a short river outing to show the importance of river shipping to Minnesota’s economy.

While the tug ride was a “nice perk,” Port Assistant Vice President of Property Development Kelly Warden said it represents serious business for the city and state. During 2007’s 242-day shipping season, for example, 12 million tons of commodities were handled by Minnesota’s river terminals – of which the Port Authority operates four. Grain including corn, soybeans and wheat accounted for 80 percent of the exports and goods imported included sand and gravel, fertilizer, salt, cement and coal, according to the Minnesota Department of Transportation (DOT).

River shipping is an important alternative to highway transportation. Each river barge can carry 1,500 to 1,650 tons – enough to fill 15 rail cars or 60 trucks. If, for example, the 9 million tons of commodities that passed through the Saint Paul Harbor in 2007 were shipped instead by truck, another 640,000 trucks would have been added to the roadways. That’s about 2,500 more trucks each day, the DOT noted.

Dignitaries along for this year’s ride included Saint Paul Mayor Chris Coleman; Bob McFarlin, acting state Department of Transportation Commissioner; Jim Boerboom, deputy state Department of Agriculture commissioner; Dan McGuiness, of the Audubon Minnesota; Col. Jon Christensen, commander of the U.S. Corps of Engineer Saint Paul District; Lt. Col. John Kunkle, deputy commander of the Corps Saint Paul District; and Paul Labovitz, superintendent of the National Park Service’s Mississippi National River and Recreation area — a 75-mile long stretch of the river that includes Saint Paul.

McGuiness, director of conservation policy for the Mississippi River Initiative of the Audubon Minnesota, got the “first blast” honor on the horn because he is retiring after years of environmental advocacy.

In recent years, river shipped commodities through Saint Paul have decreased. Much of the decline is a result of ethanol emerging as a state product. About 24 percent of the state’s corn crop goes into making the fuel — corn that might otherwise be sent down river for food products, Boerboom said.

However, crop prices have remained high and total crop production may be up again this year, meaning more materials to be shipped. And, he said, “about half of the state’s corn crop still is exported to countries like China and Mexico.”

Dick Lambert, who keeps track of river shipping for the Minnesota DOT, said “some shift in river traffic was the result of market conditions,” when shippers find it less expensive to move materials overland to the West Coast and then to China, rather than down the Mississippi River and then out to sea.

And, some of last year’s drop was the result of the Interstate 35W bridge collapse that closed the river in Minneapolis, cutting into sand and gravel shipments, he said.

“Up river traffic has been pretty steady at 5.1 million to 5.9 million tons each year for the past eight years,” Lambert said, echoing the comment about ethanol production cutting into corn shipments down river.

The local river-shipping season opens around March 21. It was later this year because of very thick ice on Lake Pepin, Nelson said, The season normally runs to about Thanksgiving, when most of the state’s crops have been harvested.

Mayor Coleman, who was enjoying his third river opening, noted that Mississippi River commerce was what gave birth to his city.

“Although often out of sight of most people, the river trade remains very important to us,” he said, citing the numerous businesses that use the river.

Warden, who works with the Port’s river clients, said the outing demonstrated how well the working river blends into a positive urban setting. “There is all this work going on around us in the middle of the city, its parks and riverfront,” she said, adding that she was pleased to get a turn at the Itasca’s whistle on her first river-shipping opening event.