Water

The Memphis Port on the Mississippi River is locaed 20 miles form Millington.

vThe Missouri, Illinois, Ohio, Red and Arkansas Rivers feed into the Mississippi, the second-longest river in the United States. Beginning in Lake Itasca, Minnesota, the Mississippi takes a 2,348-mile journey to the Gulf of Mexico.

The Mississippi River system has always been one of America's major transportation routes. Today, the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers are necessary to the economic well being of farmers, manufacturers and utilities. The river enables goods and service corporations, in the interior U.S., to export their wares.

A broad channel of the Mississippi flows past Memphis; the city known as 'America's Distribution Center'. This area of the lower Mississippi is a wide, fast moving river that is heavily used by large commercial barges. The channel is up to a mile in some places and moves with a current of four to five miles an hour. An annual minimum channel depth of nine feet and minimum width of 300 feet is maintained.

Tow barges tied together and propelled by a towboat provide a very common and economical method of cargo transportation.

Traffic moves year-round in the fourth busiest inland river port, which continues to improve its intermodal capabilities. About 630 million tons of cargo move on the inland river system each year. Petroleum products, coal, grain, ores, building materials such as sand and stone, lumber, metal products and scrap and chemicals are examples of the many bulk goods shipped on the river.

Located in the largest still water harbor on the Mississippi, Memphis is a national leader in inland handling of foreign import tonnage. Harbor is given to 44 private terminals and eight public terminals and is one of the fastest growing ports on entry by the U.S. Customs with more than 30 international forwarders operating in the area. Over 15 steamship lines and several steamship agencies have offices in Memphis. In addition, Memphis is home to the only fully enclosed LASH barge facility.