Weekly News Summary For March 8–14, 2010:
When he was named commander of the Mississippi Valley Engineer Division two years, Brig. Gen. Michael J. Walsh said he read all the history books he could find about the river: Rising Tide, Lanterns on the Levee, The River We Have Wrought, and others. When he finished reading about the history of the Mississippi River system, he asked his new staff for the manual on the future of the watershed.
He was met with silence, as of course there is no such document, he told attendees at the annual Inland Waterways Conference last week in St. Louis.
“There is no document giving a national perspective on the third-largest watershed in the world,” he said.
“We know the issues that are going to come up in the next 50 years: we’ve got water quality, we’ve got water quantity, we’ve got power issues, we’ve got how much more we can squeeze out of the locks and dams and whether we’re going to recapitalize them or not. But there’s not a document from the navigation community or from the agricultural community or from the 31 states that looks at this system as a system in a long-term environment.”
He noted that the book The River We Have Wrought—a history of the creation of the Upper Miss navigation system—talks about a four-foot-depth system. “And it took 30 years to think about it, and 30 more years for Congress to enact it,” Walsh said….
In the 1964 case Jacobellis v. Ohio, Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter uttered what has since become one of the most famous phrases in legal history. The case involved a movie claimed to be pornographic. Frankfurter admitted that he could not come up with a satisfactory definition of pornography. But, he said, “I know it when I see it.”
It’s been more than a year since the Environmental Protection Agency hastily issued its Vessel General Permit for liquid vessel discharges under pressure from a federal lawsuit. The VGP drastically increases reporting requirements and penalties for any liquid discharges from vessels or barges, and includes provisions that allow ordinary citizens to file complaints against towing companies if they think they see something wrong, dramatically increasing the stakes for violators. EPA recently posted a draft version of the VGP (it’s available at http://cfpub.epa.gov/npdes/vessels/reportcongress.cfm), and will publish it officially in the Federal Register within days.
Yet when asked repeatedly, at a recent industry forum, exactly what a VGP violation would consist of and how companies should record and document incidents, an EPA representative gave essentially a version of Frankfurter’s response: We’ll know them when we see them.
That answer left many in attendance unsatisfied.
Sean Ramach, Region 5 Vessel General Permit coordinator for the EPA, gave a presentation on March 3 at the annual meeting of the 2010 Inland Waterways Conference in St. Louis….
The Ports of Indiana handled 7.2 million tons of cargo in 2009, a 7 percent increase from the previous year which was primarily driven by increased shipments of coal, grain, salt and steel.
“This past year was one of the most difficult business environments anyone can remember,” said Rich Cooper, chief executive officer for the Ports of Indiana. “Thanks to our innovative and determined port companies, and some hard work by our team, we were able to see some moderate increases in overall shipments. Indiana’s three ports handled more cargo in the last quarter of 2009 than in any other quarter since 2006, so hopefully that’s a harbinger for 2010.”
In 2009, the Port of Indiana-Mount Vernon handled a 20 percent increase in shipments versus the previous year and its highest tonnage in 15 years. Growth in coal and grain movements, coupled with steel volumes that were six times the previous year’s, helped the Ohio River port reach its third-highest year-end tonnage since opening in 1976.
About 230 miles upstream at the Port of Indiana-Jeffersonville, salt imports reached an all-time high, up 62 percent, while grain increased 18 percent from the previous year. On Lake Michigan, the Port of Indiana-Burns Harbor shipped nearly six times as much grain in 2009 as the previous year and increased salt shipments by 42 percent….
Raymond Butler, who for nine years has led the Gulf Intracoastal Canal Association as executive director, announced March 4 that he is resigning, effective May 30.
“I have enjoyed these past nine years,” he wrote in an e-mail to members. “I had a front row seat watching a once struggling association, with little support, grow into a vibrant, innovative, proactive, all-hands-on-deck, get-the-job-done, three-way partnership that could not have happened without a heck of a lot of teamwork from all of you.
“Every hurricane, emergency response, oil spill, midnight phone call and hundreds of e-mails were all worth it if it has made us stronger and more effective today than we were yesterday. When the GIWW opens sooner, delays are reduced, our channels are more safe and efficient, and projects are less burdensome, the money saved comes back to all of us.”
Butler wrote that “I leave hopeful that my time at GICA was valuable to our industry, and that our members feel the benefits they received outweighed the cost of membership.”…
Ohio River Salvage Company, LLC, Crescent, Pa. recently purchased eight vessels from American Commercial Lines that had been tied up for a long time at ACL’s fleet in Harahan, La. The boats range from 1,000 hp. to 1,400 hp. and from 29 to 42 years in age. They are the mvs. Cheryl Dobard, Evan Wharton, Big Daddy, Anita Domino, Tater Bug, Bud Weber, Pam D and Shannon Holston.
Jimmy Zubik Jr., president of Ohio River Salvage, said he bought the boats February 5 with the intention of fixing them up and either selling or keeping them, depending on the market. In any event, they would provide work for his shipyard, he said, which is located at Mile 7.5 on the Ohio River.
The flotilla arrived in Cairo, Ill., February 26 after having been brought upriver in a single tow by ACL’s vessel Frank Haendiges. It left Cairo March 1 in tow of the Evan Wharton, which Ohio River Salvage powered up for the trip to Pittsburgh….
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