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URSA, ILL. -- Everything has been cleared up at the site of the barge accident in Granite City, but the accident stirred up possibilities of trouble for local grain elevators.

Ursa Farmers Cooperative holds one of the area's largest grain elevators. Ursa Co-op could have felt an impact, but the one thing preventing the effect was a low harvest.

Marketing manager at Ursa Coop John Benz said, "this year, since it is a smaller crop, we don't have as many bushels as we need to ship. But had we filled up with our bins, our storage, and couldn't get barges in to keep things moving along, yea it would have been a real serious situation for us. We would basically have to shut down the elevator until more barges arrive to ship grain out."

Gerald Jenkins is the general manager at Ursa Co-op. According to Jenkins, some of the dams and locks along the Mississippi are aged and in need of repair, but due to funds, cannot all be recovered. He said some of the dams and locks date all the way back to the nineteen twenties.

The recent barge accident occurred at one of these aged dams.