Weekly News Summary For January 11, 2010:
The Obama administration has come down squarely against closures of locks and waterway connections between the Mississippi River system and the Great Lakes. On January 5, U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan asked the Supreme Court to reject Michigan’s request for a preliminary injunction to force the closures as a way to stop Asian carp from infiltrating into the Great Lakes.
The next day, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, who has been spearheading closure efforts, said he wanted an immediate meeting with President Obama and congressional leaders to discuss the issue.
“I am extremely disappointed that President Obama sided with his home state while ignoring the concerns of the millions of families in Michigan, New York, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, whose jobs and way of life depends on protecting the Great Lakes from this economic and ecological disaster,” Cox told the Detroit Free Press.
Michigan’s lawsuit has now been joined by those states, plus the Canadian province of Ontario. Michigan is seeking to revive a lawsuit dating back to the 1920s that was originally based on complaints from Great Lakes states about water diversion from Lake Michigan to flush sewage away from the Chicago area and into the Illinois River via the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, the North Shore Channel, and the Calumet-Sag Channel. The “diversion” was hailed as an engineering marvel at the time it opened in 1900, but was opposed by neighboring states from the beginning.
On several occasions, the U.S. Supreme Court has issued consent decrees but has not disposed definitively of the suit, which can be reactivated….
The National Waterways Conference said in a January 6 news alert to its members that it is concerned about what it calls a “premature” move by the federal government to move ahead with revisions to water policy before public and scientific comment periods are closed.
The Council on Environmental Quality, a White House office, released its proposed changes to the Principles and Standards for Water Resources Planning (or P&S, formerly known as the Principles and Guidelines or P&G) on December 3. The CEQ took over the revision process from the Army Corps of Engineers, which last revised the P&G in 1983. The CEQ has said that it included many federal agencies, including the Corps, in the discussions leading to the proposed revisions.
A public comment period on the proposed revisions is set to run until March 5, 2010. In addition, the Proposed P&S has been submitted to the National Academy of Sciences for its own review, which is not expected to be completed until November 2010.
The statement by NWC said that nevertheless, “efforts are underway” within the CEQ to begin the second phase of the revision of the standards—before public and scientific comments have been received….
Office employees and boat personnel at Western Kentucky Navigation Inc. were notified January 2 that American Commercial Lines is terminating its charter agreements for the nine vessels currently being crewed and operated by the Paducah, Ky.-based company. As a result of the cancellation of the operating agreement, approximately 200 WKN employees will be laid off, effective March 6, according to the announcement by Capt. Dave E. Dewey, WKN founder and president.
WKN’s notice stated its operating agreement with ACL will end by the close of business on March 12.
The announcement also said that ACL intends to continue operating some of the boats after March 5 and the soon-to-be furloughed WKN employees are encouraged to pursue interviews with ACL through its human resource department.
A phone call to ACL for comment was not returned.
WKN was operating 16 vessels for ACL along virtually the entire inland waterway system in 2000, according to port captain Cecil Duncan, who has been with the company since 1999….
The prolonged cold snap that has engulfed most of the country has produced thick ice along the length of the Upper Mississippi system that has trapped towboats, and closed ferries. Ingram Barge Company reported that flowing ice has been seen as far south as Columbus, Ky., at LMR Mile 937.
At Lock and Dam 22, in Saverton, Mo., the rapidly forming ice trapped two towboats belonging to American River Transportation Company, the mv. Coral Dawn and the mv. New Dawn.
The Coral Dawn, a twin-screw, 5,400 hp. boat with kort nozzles built in 1967 by St. Louis Ship, was originally named the Kathryn Eckstein and was operated by Wisconsin Barge Line Inc. of St. Louis until that company merged into ARTCO.
The New Dawn, built in 1974 by Dravo Corporation, is a twin-screw boat with 6,000 hp. Caterpillar 3516 diesel engines. It was originally named the Joseph Patrick, then renamed the Cajun Cory until it got its present name in 1979 when it was purchased by Wisconsin Barge Line….
The Missouri Highway and Transportation Commission announced in a December 30 press release that it had awarded the $229.5 million contract for the main span of a new Mississippi River bridge to a joint venture from Massman Construction, Traylor Brothers, and Alberici Construction. The Illinois Department of Transportation concurred with the decision.
The Mississippi River Bridge will be built at Mile 181.2, about four miles downstream of Lock 27. It is designed to relieve traffic pressures on the existing Poplar Street Bridge that crosses the Mississippi River in St. Louis. The Poplar Street Bridge is one of only two bridges nationwide that carry three interstates, and is the only urban interstate bridge between Illinois and Missouri.
The project has been in planning and development for years, in a sometimes-contentious process that saw, at one point, a complete breakdown in negotiations between Missouri and Illinois, whose transportation departments share cost and jurisdiction.
But the project, currently budgeted at $640 million, is now on track to begin construction in early 2010. The federal government will supply $239 million; the two states make up the rest. Illinois’ contribution is about four times that of Missouri, because more work will be done on the Illinois side….
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