Failing Infrastructure-River Transport Edition

All Things Considered:

FARMER: A tow boat loaded down with coal approaches a lock on Tennessee's winding Cumberland River. Deckhands in yellow rain suits radio instructions to the captain.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Need to come up on the port about six inches.
FARMER: This is the pinch point where barge companies depend on government. Lochs function like elevators on the water - that is unless they're broken, then they're just barriers. On the way up, the chamber fills with water to raise the boat to the lake level behind the dam.
Ingram's David Edgin points to water spewing through seals in a 50-year-old gate.
DAVID EDGIN: It didn't use to do that.
FARMER: Really?
EDGIN: Really, seriously. To me it's a sign of the times.
FARMER: Elsewhere, catastrophe has been narrowly avoided. On the Ohio River, a 250-ton gate snapped off its hinges. In October, a concrete loch wall collapsed.
JEFF ROSS: It used to be preventive maintenance. We would fund things in advance of breaking.
FARMER: Jeff Ross, with the Army Corps of Engineers, says its $180 million annual repair budget is only enough to fix parts as they break. Ross says soon there won't be money to do that.

 $180 million a year?  That works out to $2.40 for a family of four per year.  That won't even cover one Happy Meal, will it?  If barge traffic saves 3 cents a bushel in trucking costs (and that's probably way under), that's $30 per truckload.  We sent over 50 truckloads of corn off of our farms.  That's $1500 more spent moving our grain.  That doesn't even touch coal and other commodities.  We're killing ourselves.