Weekly News Summary For March 24-30, 2008:
A proposed Interstate Highway Loop around Baton Rouge has some mariners concerned that the planned northern bridge across the Mississippi River will be built adjacent to the Upper Baton Rouge Bridge (U.S. Hwy. 190), making a difficult passage for towboats even worse.
Two meetings have been held with towing companies, New Orleans Baton Rouge Steamship Pilots Association (NOBRA) pilots, the Coast Guard and design engineers. As a result of the meetings, the proposed location of the southern bridge has tentatively been moved, in part because of the burden placed on marine traffic destined for the Port Allen Lock, and because it encroached on two fleeting areas and a ship anchorage.
But the most frequently mentioned location for the northern bridge remains just south of the Hwy. 190 Bridge. A second proposed location for the northern bridge is a few miles north of Baton Rouge near Southern University.
Because the Loop will be partially funded with tolls, usage of the bridge—and tolls collected—will be a factor. But a lot of other factors play into the bridge’s location, including environmental, engineering and political concerns, said Bob Schmidt, vice president with HNTB, an engineering firm based in Kansas City, which is working on the project.
Schmidt said plans for the Loop are in the very early stages and that navigation interests would continue to be consulted. He said design of the bridge, if built just below the Hwy. 190 Bridge, may include just one pier in the river that could be lined up with an existing pier on the Upper Baton Rouge Bridge….
The joint venture group that will erect the bridge trusses for the roadway widening of the Huey P. Long Bridge across the Mississippi River above New Orleans is proposing using new construction techniques that will reduce the number of projected closings of the river by as many as 30 twelve-hour closings.
MTI, a joint venture of Massman, Traylor and Japanese-based IHI, is the contractor for the superstructure widening that will expand the two nine-foot-wide lanes to three, 11-foot-wide highway lanes on the 80-year old bridge. HNTB Corporation, an engineering firm based in Kansas City, is the construction engineer. Modjeski & Masters of New Orleans is the design engineer.
Steve Hayes is project engineer for MTI and explained the plan to industry and government officials at the Greater New Orleans Port Safety Council luncheon on March 6 at the New Orleans Yacht Club.
While the construction details are still being worked out, Hayes, and project manager Steve Underwood, said redundancy has already been planned for the lift equipment, so there is no danger of the project being stalled by equipment failure with the river blocked….
The Port of Pittsburgh Commission has been granted a United States Patent for its “SmartLock” system.
The patent, No. 7,208,914, is for “an instrumented navigation system for aiding a towboat and barge configuration in the entry and traversal of a lock located on a waterway or for navigation around other structures, such as bridges, piers or docks.”
James R. McCarville, executive director of the Port of Pittsburgh Commission, said the SmartLock system consists of computers on the towboat that provide pilots with an easy display of navigational charts showing the position of the tows as they approach and enter the locks. The computers are also linked to sensors such as GPS which can send information—including the speed, direction and position of the tows—to the computers for display.
“The commission’s interest in advancing the technology is primarily one of reducing the cost of doing business on the waterways and increasing safety,” said Peter Stephaich, chief executive officer of Campbell Transportation and a PPC commissioner. “The project was developed as a partnership between the port, Carnegie Mellon University, the local office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and local industry.”…
A series of heavy rains in the Midwest pushed rivers out of their banks last week.
The St. Louis Engineer District stood up its Emergency Operations Center March 18 as the Upper Mississippi River neared flood levels. Opening the center begins the process of establishing funding requirements for following activity, brings a team to heightened preparedness, and establishes reporting procedures to keep everyone well-informed, the district said in an announcement.
The district has also deployed two flood-fighting teams. One went to Valley Park, Mo., on the Meramec River, where a levee completed in 2005 is being tested for the first time. The other team went to the Miller Pond Drainage District, on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River across from Cape Girardeau, Mo. A 50-year agricultural levee in that district was overtopped March 18 and Corps experts joined their local counterparts to assess damage and plan post-flood steps to be taken….
Conrad Industries is quietly celebrating 60 years in business at the same location at its Front Street shipyard in Morgan City, La. The company employs 700 workers at three yards in Louisiana and one in Texas.
J. Parker Conrad founded the company in 1948 to build wooden shrimp boats for the Gulf of Mexico. He had just sold his seafood buying and transporting business to General Foods, which had decided to build nine shrimp boats on the site. Conrad was asked to stay on and oversee the construction. It was his first foray into boat building.
After the nine boats were built, he bought the shipyard site, and continues to work there to this day, despite his 92 years. He serves as cochairman with his son Johnny Conrad. Grandson Daniel Conrad, Johnny’s son, is now a salesman for the company.
About half of the revenue for Conrad Industries comes from repair work, with the other half from a variety of new-construction projects, which have included Z-drive tugs, deck barges, lift boats, an aluminum ferry for Bolivar-Galveston in Texas, and several boats for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Oil barge construction is becoming a big part of the business. Conrad recently signed a contract with Settoon Towing to build tank barges for inland and near-coastal collection of oil….
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