Editorial: Short Sea Shipping Raises Interesting Questions

There is a scenario developing among government and leaders of the blue-water shipping industry that involves short sea shipping (SSS). Naturally, the advantages of SSS are being hyped. And what do they use for proof that it will work? They use statistics from the Arkansas Waterway. So, in the end SSS is merely modern towing, which has been going on successfully for more than half a century on the inland waterways. Coastwise, it would involve different vessels.

The Maritime Administration and the U.S. Department of Transportation like the idea. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has said, “Transportation experts have cited numerous benefits such as congestion mitigation, for developing short sea shipping, but they have also noted numerous obstacles, such as shippers’ reluctance to try a different mode for transporting their cargo, that impede its development.”

The GAO report (GAO-05-768) says, “The Department of Transportation (DOT) has made short sea shipping a high-priority option to enhance freight mobility and has drafted a policy proposal to provide potential federal funding.”

SSS along the coasts is in the discussion stage. One region determined that a shipment of 800 miles would result in cost savings of about 50 percent over trucking rates. A 200-mile shipment could not compete. Among the benefits would be reduced air pollution and highway congestion. Planners in the Bridgeport, Conn., area said that within two years, SSS could cut truck trips by 50,000 a year.

The inland towing industry has made many of the same claims for decades. We’ve known about the potential gains since railroads first began to deliver goods (at increased rates) and the first trucks began belching diesel exhaust.

Surprisingly, the river industry can’t even get the bucks to take the bottlenecks out of the Upper Mississippi and Illinois rivers. A report in the Los Angeles Times says that the plan of federal officials and the transportation industry to increase shipping does include the 13,000 miles of inland waterways. But the plan, as explained in the Times, is to develop “fleets of small cargo ships and tug-powered barges to haul some of the freight usually carried by truck to and from the nation’s ports. The concept is known as short sea shipping.” Unfortunately, the Upper Miss/Illinois modernization plan has been put on ice for about five years.

Ideas involving SSS are blossoming all over the place. It is said that six coastal ships operating within a 150-mile radius of Los Angeles could do the work of 4,200 trucks. But there are also thoughts, no doubt, about federal financial aid to help make these ideas work. Well, is there any need to remind federal officials that there is congestion and pollution in the heartland as well and that fixing the Upper Mississippi and Illinois could be of great help in reducing delays in cargo delivery, reducing pollution and highway congestion? What do they think we have been talking about for years? The Upper Miss/Illinois plan is ready to go. All we need is money.

There are obstacles to coastal SSS, by the way. The idea runs smack up against our cabotage laws. It is pretty much agreed that we don’t have enough ships and barges to do the job. This, no doubt, will produce efforts to modify cabotage laws. When that happens, the battle will be on. As the Times reminds us, “Under federal law, vessels that only sail between the nation’s ports must be built in the United States, registered in the U.S., owned by U.S. companies and crewed by U.S. citizens.”

In the Midwest, we have a plum waiting to be plucked. Picking it would involve modernization of the waterways. Also, a few inland companies have begun experimenting with their version of SSS, moving goods by barge that once moved only by rail and truck. Some are beginning to make progress when they find shippers that cotton to the idea.

The inland waterways offer the same environmental advantages and the same opportunity to reduce highway congestion, but the federal government has chosen to punt when it comes to financing the Upper Miss/Illinois project. On the one hand, they bicker over what we believe to be short-term reduced-cargo figures, and on the other they project ballooning transportation needs. They can’t have it both ways. (See cargo projections below.)

The GAO study recommended that the DOT secretary and MarAd administrator “(1) develop a more thorough understanding of SSS issues before defining a federal role involving substantial federal investment and (2) use current mechanisms to encourage other public decision makers to use a systematic approach for making investment decisions on freight mobility projects.” (DOT officials generally agreed with the report.)

The U.S. transportation system now carries about 17 billion tons of freight annually, valued at more than $11 trillion. The Times repeats the oft-published projections that domestic cargo volumes are expected to increase by 70 percent by 2025, while international trade is expected to at least double. Both truck and rail systems are encountering congestion.

Coastal SSS may have great potential, but it will not develop overnight. In the meantime, the feds could be practical and get the Upper Miss/Illinois project back on track.

It would be timely and prudent to fix up what we already have and what we already know will work, while we continue to work out the kinks involved in developing coastal SSS and the inevitable battle over cabotage laws.

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