The following is text of a news release from the Lake Carriers' Association (LCA):
(CLEVELAND) — The Lake Carriers’ Association is reporting significant progress on issues critical to the future of Great Lakes shipping in its 2018 State of the Lakes Report released this week. The LCA has represented U.S.-flag vessel operators on the Great Lakes since 1880.
The cover of the report features a 1,000-foot-long U.S.-flag laker transiting the Poe Lock at Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., and for good reason. On June 29, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued its New Soo Lock Economic Validation Study that determined building a second Poe-sized lock has a benefit/cost ratio of 2.42, well above the level required for inclusion in an administration budget. Upon the study’s release James C. Dalton, the Corps’ director of Civil Works, stressed “the strategic importance of the Soo Locks cannot be overstated.”
President Trump has publicly supported the project, so the LCA will now focus its efforts on having a substantial portion of the $922 million project estimate included in the administration’s next budget.
At one point this past winter, five of the U.S. Coast Guard’s icebreaking assets were out of service at the same time. The delays in December and January were so significant that LCA members saw 1.8 million tons of cargo either delayed or outright canceled. These problems underscored the need for another heavy Mackinaw-class icebreaker. Initial funding to design the vessel has been appropriated. Now LCA’s resources are focused on funding construction.
The association continues to support uniform federal regulation of ballast water discharges because the patchwork of regulations enforced by two federal agencies (U.S. Coast Guard and the Environmental Protection Agency) and several Great Lakes states makes compliance difficult, if not impossible. To that end, the LCA supports passage of the Vessel Incidental Discharge Act (VIDA).
Steady increases in funding for dredging have reduced the backlog of sediment that needs to be dredged from ports and waterways from 18 million cubic yards to 13.5 million cubic yards. However, the backlog must continue to be reduced. The vessels operated by LCA members lose as much as 270 tons of cargo for each inch of reduced draft. Congress must continue to adequately fund dredging on the Lakes. Even when the backlog has been cleared, the natural rate of siltation will require that 3 million cubic yards of sediment be dredged each year.
The issues LCA is addressing are formidable, but everything points to a sustainable future for U.S.-flag shipping on the Great Lakes.
About Lake Carriers’ Association
The Lake Carriers’ Association represents 13 American companies that operate 45 U.S.-flag vessels (“lakers”) on the Great Lakes and carry the raw materials that drive the nation’s economy: iron ore and fluxstone for the steel industry, aggregate and cement for the construction industry, coal for power generation, as well as salt, sand and grain. Collectively, its members can transport more than 100 million tons of dry-bulk cargo per year and employ more than 1,600 men and women, all of whom are U.S. citizens or legally admitted aliens, and provide annual wages and benefits of approximately $125 million. In turn, the cargoes its members carry create and sustain nearly 116,00 jobs in the eight Great Lakes states and generate more than $20 billion in economic activity, $8.3 billion in personal income, $16.4 billion in business revenue, $4.1 billion in local purchases and $3.7 billion in taxes. For more information, contact Glen Nekvasil at (440) 333-9996 or Nekvasil@lcaships.com.
