Posted on 07/29/2004 9:36:08 AM PDT by Willie Green
More than two million tons of waterborne cargo, including some that floats through the Port of Pittsburgh district, will be disrupted by the planned two-week shutdown next month of the McAlpine Lock on the Ohio River near Louisville, Ky.
Chemical, mining and basic manufacturing companies are among those that could be adversely affected by the emergency closure, said James R. McCarville, executive director of the Port of Pittsburgh Commission, a state agency that promotes commercial river use.
"This is something we think will have a significant impact. Everything below Louisville that comes here will be subject to closing. All of our international business is subject to the closure," McCarville said on Wednesday.
McCarville said chemical companies are impacted, especially those that ship chlorine, which is used as feedstock in several manufacturing processes and cannot be stored.
Aluminum producers in the Upper Ohio Valley also will be affected because they depend on aluminum ore, which is imported on shiploads through the Gulf Coast and transported upriver by barge, while shipping some finished product downriver by barge.
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A second lock, originally authorized in the early 1990s, would have opened by now if it had been completed as scheduled, and the current crisis would have been averted, according to Waterways Council Inc., a lobbying group based in Washington, D.C. The group says insufficient federal funding has caused a drawn-out construction period for the second lock at McAlpine.
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
More than $400 million has built up in the Inland Trust Fund, which is funded by a 20-cent tax on every gallon of fuel purchased by the river shipping industry.
Congress is obligated to match money in the fund, which is earmarked for lock upgrades and repairs. To date, however, the federal government has been reluctant to release money from the fund, instead opting to use it to offset deficits in the federal budget.
The Bush Administration apparently approves of this scandalous misappropriation of funds. In doing so, it jeopardizes the safety and security of our inland waterway transportation infrastructure, along with the associated benefits of flood control and recreation.
Interesting article.
There is an extremely unfortunate tendency to take vital infrastructure for granted until AFTER problems arise.
A second lock, originally authorized in the early 1990s,
It looks like most of the delay was on Clinton's, not Bush's watch.
More than $400 million has built up in the Inland Trust Fund,
And how many projects will that fund? Less than 2 the size of McAlpin, leaving no pork for the other states.
The new $275 million 1,200x110-foot lock at McAlpine Lock and Dam will replace two old locks. It should be completed in 2008.
http://www.hq.usace.army.mil/cepa/pubs/jan03/story18.htm
Even if it was doubled, what else is out there?
$222 million in new construction at Marmet Locks on the Kanawha River
The $300 million Chickamauga Lock Addition
$43 million Providence River and Harbor Maintenance Dredging Project.
A $200 million project will replace two obsolete locks at Soo Locks with one modern lock
The new $275 million 1,200x110-foot lock at McAlpine Lock and Dam*
A $625 million project is adding a 1,200-foot lock to the 600-foot lock for the Tennessee River tributary. The Greenup Lock and Dam increases its auxiliary lock from 600 feet to 1,200 feet, and a 1,200-foot floating-concrete guide wall and land-built lock wall will be lifted in place by floating cranes.
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