Getting down and dirty on dredging

Getting down and dirty on dredging    American shippers may enjoy the benefits of efficient marine terminals, but a problem that quietly lurks beneath the water's surface in many harbors threatens to slow commerce to a trickle.
   We're talking about mud ' and lots of it. The nation's rivers and tributaries deposit tons of silt in harbors annually. In the case of the Great Lakes, the continuous tidal effect pushes sediment from the depths into vessel channels and terminal berths.
   As associate editor Chris Dupin writes in this issue ('Clear as mud,' pages 52-61), keeping harbor channels and terminal berths clear of mud is admittedly complicated, environmentally sensitive, and expensive work for the Army Corps of Engineers. In tough economic times, it's easy for the White House and Capitol Hill to simply shortchange dredging. Also, the out-of-sight, out-of-mind nature of this activity gives it low billing among shippers, who may believe it's the ports' problem, not theirs.
   Many shippers may not realize they're already paying for the nation's dredging through a 0.125 percent harbor maintenance tax on the value of their imported cargoes. This money, in turn, is deposited into the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund.
   With a $6 billion surplus in the trust, there appears to be plenty of funding to allow ports to keep their harbors at project depths. That was the main goal of the Harbor Maintenance Tax, and it should remain the priority for those funds.
   Deeper harbors benefit not only the shipping industry, but farmers and industry. Deep water can help make U.S. exports more competitive. Even though they don't pay into the trust fund, agricultural and industrial exporters should be appalled at the country's apparent half-hearted attempts to keep its harbors clear of mud.
   At the same time, it's not uncommon, already in some East Coast ports, for large containerships to work their port entries and departures around high tide to get sufficient draft. That problem is only going to get worse. According to estimates by the information service Alphaliner, by the end of 2014 16 percent of the world's container capacity will be on ships with capacities of more than 10,000 TEUs, and another 17 percent on ships with space for at least 7,500 TEUs.
   In the Great Lakes, as much as 15.5 million cubic yards of sediment awaits removal. It's estimated that an ore vessel loses about 250 tons of potential cargo volume per inch of lost harbor draft. According to the Great Lakes Maritime Task Force, when a ship delivers a full load of low-sulfur coal to Michigan's Belle River power plant, the cargo should total 70,000 tons or more. Because of silting, the top cargo to the utility in 2010 was only 66,000 tons.
   We need a national debate on how much we can afford to spend on dredging and how to prioritize those projects.
   It's time for shippers to bring dredging to the surface and lobby individually or collaboratively through trade groups, such as the American Association of Port Authorities and Realize America's Maritime Promise, The Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund Fairness Coalition, to back recently proposed House (H.R. 104) and Senate (S. 412) legislation that requires trust fund dollars to be spent responsibly and solely on the nation's dredging.