Shallow harbors shortchange Great Lakes shippers

Shallow harbors shortchange Great Lakes shippers

Oberstar

   Large commodity shippers dependent on Great Lakes vessel transportation are increasingly frustrated about shortening their loads because of insufficiently dredged harbors.
   'In June, a vessel with a designed carrying capacity of 28,300 net tons left our plant in Calcite, Mich., with only a little more than 24,000 tons in her holds,' said Thomas Buck, president and chief executive officer of Carmeuse Lime & Stone, in a speech Thursday to members of the Great Lakes Maritime Task Force in Washington. 'The dredging crisis cost us nearly 15 percent of the vessel's carrying capacity.'
   Carmeuse operates three large stone quarries that ship via the Great Lakes. In 2008, those quarries loaded 14 million tons of aggregate and fluxstone into Great Lakes freighters, making it one of the largest shippers in the region.
   Buck said the dredging crisis costs Carmeuse nearly 2 million tons of cargo a year. 'The same number of vessels needed to deliver Carmeuse's annual tonnage could deliver another 1.9 million tons of limestone and another 50,000 tons of kiln fuel if Great Lakes ports and waterways were properly dredged,' he said.

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   Other shippers, such as the region's coal and iron ore suppliers, are experiencing the same problems across the Great Lakes' more than 100 ports.
   The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates it needs $200 million to restore the Great Lakes navigation system to functional dimensions. Without the necessary funding, Great Lakes vessels will continue to ship at less than their capacity potential.
   The Great Lakes Maritime Task Force is pressing Congress to provide sufficient funds for dredging harbors and waterways. In 2008, the task force's lobbying helped secure a nearly $40 million increase in the Corps' dredging budget for the Great Lakes.
   Donald Cree, president of the task force, and national vice president of the Great Lakes for the American Maritime Officers union, said the funding increase 'allowed the Corps to not only remove the sediment that built up over the year, but even begin to whittle away at the 18 million cubic yards of sediment that still clog our ports and waterways.'
   He noted, however, that the effort was short-lived. President Bush's final proposed budget for fiscal year 2009 slashed nearly $50 million from the Great Lakes' dredging appropriation. 'Fortunately, the omnibus bill added $35 million back for lakes dredging, so we should be able to keep reducing the backlog in 2009.'
   Cree said the 'ace in the hole' for Great Lakes dredging initiatives should be the existing Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, the repository for the port-use tax levied on waterborne commerce, which now has a surplus of about $5 billion.
   'That surplus is tax dollars American industries paid so waterways would be dredged,' Cree said. 'It was not a charitable contribution to be used at the government's discretion. Quite frankly, some people in Washington forgot about the 'trust' in the trust fund.'
   The nation's port interests have launched an effort to have legislation passed that would require the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund to spend what it takes in each year. 'That's a considerable amount of money — about $1.1 billion a year. The reason we have a dredging crisis is the fund only spends about $700 million a year. So much for 'user pay, user say,' ' Cree said.
   Buck of Carmeuse urged members of the task force to work even harder this year to get Congress to fully fund Great Lakes dredging. He said a lawmaker warned him during a Wednesday meeting that there are 'worse things to come. I'm afraid we'll see the numbers go down instead of up.'
   Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, told the task force that the time is now to lobby the Congress for sufficient Great Lakes dredge funds and infrastructure upgrades, especially with Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., at the helm of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and President Obama in the White House. 'You should be busier now than you'll ever be in your life,' she said. ' Chris Gillis