Weekly News Summary For March 29 - April 4, 2010:
The city of Cincinnati deposited $1.68 million in a court-ordered escrow account March 19 as partial compensation for having blocked development of a barge terminal—the first payment of what could be additional payments worth millions more.
The payments were due because of court rulings that the city council has blocked development of the proposed Queensgate Barge Terminal by soybean farmer and developer David Martin.
Martin has won lawsuits in state and federal court, including a ruling that the council’s actions have amounted to an illegal “taking” of his property. City officials have warned the council repeatedly about the city’s liability, to no avail. The payment consisted of $1,299,158, plus interest dating back to March 2005. A Hamilton County judge rejected an appeal by the city to avoid the payment.
The initial campaign against the barge terminal, planned for the 30-acre site of an old cement plant that Martin bought for $5 million, came from neighborhood preservationists concerned that the terminal would spoil the Price Hill neighborhood’s character.
A deal with the city seemed close in October 2009, when Martin agreed to accept a location swap. Under that deal, the city would have bought 21 acres for Martin at another riverfront site that could later be expanded as the terminal grew. The deal included other payments to cover Martin’s legal costs and to dismiss his claims….
The U.S. Supreme Court declined for a second time on March 22 to grant the state of Michigan an injunction closing two locks between the Chicago area and Lake Michigan to prevent passage of the Asian carp into the lakes.
Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox had refiled his petition the day after the Supreme Court refused his first petition on January 19 in a one-sentence ruling without comment. The Corps of Engineers had announced on the same day that carp DNA had been found in Lake Michigan, and Cox refiled on the basis of this new information.
Waterways Council Inc. welcomed the ruling, saying, “This is a victory for waterborne commerce because closing the locks would have disastrous consequences to consumers in the Midwest region, and for all industries and companies that rely on the waterways system to ship critical commodities that help drive our U.S. economy and export markets.
“The inland waterways industry, through The American Waterways Operators…has outlined to Congress nine specific actions that could be taken as part of an integrated strategy to prevent Asian carp from entering the Great Lakes that ensures a balanced approach to environmental protection and economic sustainability for the Great Lakes and Western rivers.”…
The Lt. Robert E. Lee, a floating restaurant fondly remembered in St. Louis for its heyday there during the 1970s, burned to its hull on March 21. It was moored on the Mississippi River at Beelman River Terminals, south of St. Louis’ downtown, awaiting transfer to a new life as a river attraction in St. Charles, Mo.
The fire broke out at about 3 p.m., according to firefighters quoted by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch who arrived to find the vessel already burning. They were delayed by two inoperable hydrants at the scene. By the time they were able to douse the flames, the boat’s three decks had collapsed. Flammable foam material in the hull meant the boat would smolder throughout the evening, St. Louis Deputy Fire Chief Steven Kotraba told the Post-Dispatch.
Kotraba said he alerted the Coast Guard because of the boat’s closeness to shipping channels, but its mooring cables held.
The Lt. Robert E. Lee’s superstructure was built in 1969 on the steel hull of a 1930s debris-clearing boat. During its tenure as a floating restaurant from 1970 to 1993, thousands of St. Louisans built up memories of special occasions there.
In 2004, investors moved it to the small town of Kimmswick, south of St. Louis, but it was closed after plans to acquire a gambling license for it fell through. It was towed back to St. Louis in 2006….
In the face of higher-than-normal flows on the Missouri River, the Northwestern Engineer Division canceled the two-day “pulse” that had been scheduled for the river last week.
The Corps had planned two pulses this spring to benefit the endangered pallid sturgeon—one last week and one in May. However, the melt of the extensive plains snowpack in eastern South Dakota, eastern Nebraska and western Iowa raised river levels well above the flow limits, eliminating the need for the pulse.
The March pulse was to be 5,000 cubic feet per second minus the flow on the James River just above its confluence with the Missouri, upstream of Sioux City, Iowa. When the Corps made the decision to cancel the pulse March 19, the flow on the James was more than 20,000 cfs. and rising.
Tributary streams throughout eastern South Dakota were well above flood stage and forecast to continue climbing, the Corps said. The Missouri itself was above flood stage from the Platte River in Nebraska to the Mississippi River, and not forecast to fall for several weeks….
American Commercial Lines Inc. hosted an open house March 18 for its new Northern Division headquarters and christened a boat renamed in honor of the facility at Ohio River Mile 976. Situated only five miles from the river’s intersection with the Mississippi River, the modern service and operations center is housed aboard floating facilities that were moved from Louisville, Ky., in November 2009.
ACL realigned its Transportation Services Division into two regional operations centers last September. The Southern Division, based in Harahan, La., includes the company’s network in Baton Rouge and South along the Gulf Coast. The Northern Division, now located at Cairo, Ill., includes the company’s operating network north of Baton Rouge. The company said in a news release that the goals of the realignment include reducing costs, increasing efficiencies and improvement of service by moving operations leaders to the field, closer to its customers and employees. Operations management personnel had previously been located at ACL’s corporate headquarters in Jeffersonville, Ind.
The company operates a fleet of more than 2,500 barges and about 130 towboats on more than 12,000 miles of U.S. inland waterways. It also operates terminals throughout this network as well as providing barge fleeting, shifting and cleaning along with barge and boat repair services. ACL had about 2,570 employees as of December 31, 2009.
ACL’s history in Cairo extends back to 1973, when it established a barge fleet to replace its former practice of building tows along the city’s riverfront. A barge-cleaning operation began two years later, followed by a deckhand training center in 1988 and an expansion into barge repairs in 1992….
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