Editorial: NWC—A Product Of Its Time In A Time Of Need

One could certainly complete a journalistic chore by reminding readers that in September this year the National Waterways Conference will celebrate the Golden Anniversary of its founding. But a lot has happened since the first formal organizing session was held October 12, 1960, and it deserves looking into.

It is said, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” So when on June 30, 1955, the Second Hoover Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government recommended that Congress authorize a user charge on inland waterways to cover maintenance and operation, the recommendation sent shock waves up and down the nation’s waterways. The threat gave birth to necessity.

Actually, the shock waves were so intense that Braxton B. Carr of The American Waterways Operators suggested that waterway and port programs urgently needed some agency to state their views with a single voice. Thus, plans were put in play for the organizational meeting. It was, intentionally, not the purpose of the newly formed association to usurp the efforts of other waterway groups but to coordinate the anti-tolls fight and otherwise support the waterways industry. In other words, the intent of NWC was to supplement the work of existing organizations in a national program designed to coordinate the efforts of everyone interested in the development, presentation and use of the waterways of the United States, Carr explained when the October 12 organizational meeting was called.

What else could they have done? After the Hoover Commission-induced shockwave, bad news seemed to surface with more frequency. Former NWC President Harry Cook tells us that in 1956, President Eisenhower set up an Interdepartmental Committee on User Charges. A year later the former Bureau of the Budget directed the Department of Commerce to examine the question of imposing charges on inland navigation. In 1958, a Senate committee authorized a report on national policy dealing with federal assistance to the transportation modes and the desirability of assessing user charges.

“Then,” as Cook puts it, “in March 1960 came a bombshell. Commerce Secretary Frederick H. Mueller advocated full waterway cost recovery, beginning with low-level fuel taxes, followed by annual increases over a period of years.”

Interestingly, the 20-cents-per-gallon fuel tax that feeds into the Inland Waterways Trust Fund today, combined with the impact of rapid cost growth and severe under-financing of civil works projects, worked to supersize the water-project backlog. Now, new financing schemes and cost-control measures are under study.

As Cook reminded us in the NWC’s January 2010 newsletter, the organization’s 10-member steering committee directed the preparation of “materials on the benefits of America’s free waterways and their importance to economic growth and development. Committee members briefed their members of Congress, visited local newspapers, and made numerous luncheon speeches.” The practices are as common today as they were in the beginning, if not more so. Any person or organization seeking explanations about prevailing waterways issues can count on the NWC for clear, concise responses.

Inland waterway interests were hit with a double whammy in the late 1960s when growing interest in the environment and conservation married up with the effort to impose waterways user fees just before the dawn of the decade-long battle to replace Locks and Dam 26 on the Mississippi River at Alton, Ill. It was made to order for environmentalists, who were against any kind of progress, and railroads, which always complained about waterways financing. This despite the fact that railroads across the nation received grants of millions of acres of land and mineral rights valued today in the billions. The railroads financed environmental groups, and when the Izaak Walton League and Sierra Club filed lawsuits to stop L&D 26 replacement, the courts combined the suits. A key argument was that building the locks would increase traffic on the waterway, a result not permitted by law. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had planned to award contracts on September 4, 1974, in St. Louis. The award was canceled.

Making matters worse, environmental laws passed in the early 1970s specified that individuals who had environmental bones to pick with civil works projects could file lawsuits. Since then, billions of dollars have been squandered on frivolous lawsuits and transporters have been deprived time and again of low-cost water transportation. The delay in L&D 26 replacement boosted the construction price from $383 million to somewhat over a billion. Railroads boasted that each year during the decade-long delay they were able to charge shippers an additional $750 million for movement of goods by rail.

Today, the work of NWC is much more complicated. Projects like the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System would not be possible, said Cook.

We can safely say that the work done over the years by various associations, some no longer in existence, has greatly benefited the nation, sometimes in ways difficult to ascertain. True to its original intent, the NWC has supplemented the work of other associations and carried on vital work designed to maintain and improve waterways.

Being well into its second century of serving the towing industry, the WJ has had the honor of watching NWC grow from a sprout. It has not abandoned its quest. Our congratulations on a job well done!

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