Weekly News Summary For April 19-25, 2009:
The highly touted American Marine Highway, a water transport concept envisioned as the equivalent of the decades-old interstate highway system, won major support this month from both the Department of Transportation and Capitol Hill.
Keynoting the second day of the 7th annual North American Marine Highways & Logistics Conference April 7 at the Maritime Institute, Linthicum Heights, Md., Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood formally launched the administration’s America’s Marine Highway Program, which LaHood said was “long overdue but will soon be a reality.”
Under the new program, waterway interests will be encouraged to offer marine highway projects for a portion of DOT’s new $7 million program that will be announced later this summer. Under the program, the Maritime Administration will help identify rivers and coastal routes that could carry cargo efficiently, bypassing congested roads around busy ports and reducing greenhouse gases. Instructions on how applications may be made for official designation of a marine highway project were spelled out in a final rule published April 9 in the Federal Register.
Acting Maritime Administrator David Matsuda, who was awaiting Senate confirmation of his appointment to maritime administrator, said that maritime transportation “has so much potential to help our nation in many ways: reduced gridlock and greenhouse gases and more jobs for skilled mariners and shipbuilders.”
“For too long, we’ve overlooked the economic and environmental benefits that our waterways and domestic seaports offer as a means of moving freight in this country,” LaHood said. The new program is “part of our broader strategy to improve our nation’s transportation infrastructure across the board by ensuring that shippers have viable, cost-effective options for moving goods throughout the United States and around the world.”…
Indiana’s Supreme Court ruled on April 14 against a sand and gravel company that sought to keep out pleasure craft from a lake the company connected to the Ohio River for a barge operation. The court ruled that the permit obtained by Nugent Sand Company to dig a channel connecting the lake to the river essentially converted its private lake into a public waterway.
A Nugent representative said the company would not comment until it had a chance to examine the ruling further.
One of the largest sand and gravel suppliers in the Ohio River valley, Nugent Sand Company was incorporated in 1908, delivering sand and gravel on wooden barges towed by paddle-wheel towboats from downtown Louisville, Ky.
Today, Nugent Sand Company is majority owned and operated by the third generation of Nugents, with two German partners, Bernhard Oppermann and Herman Wegener, who have sand, gravel, stone, ready mix concrete and asphalt construction interests in Europe.
Nugent’s Kentucky locations include downtown Louisville, Lexington, and Warsaw, and its Indiana locations include Utica and Columbus. The company supplies salt, sand, gypsum and gravel to roads and dock projects in Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania.
Its barge operations, located at Milton/Carrollton, Ky., Utica, and downtown Louisville, employ six towboats and about 45 pieces of floating equipment, including deck barges and crane barges….
Privately held Cline Resource & Development Company plans to build a major coal terminal near West Franklin, Ind., on the Ohio River as part of its expansion of mining operations in southern Illinois and Indiana.
A proposal filed with Indiana’s Division of Water in February by one of Cline’s subsidiaries, SITran LLC of Marion, Ill., describes a rail-to-barge coal facility stretching from Mile 817.2 to Mile 817.5. SITran plans to use the facility to load coal from mines in southern Indiana and Illinois onto barges. Comments to the Corps of Engineers on the proposed terminal closed April 10.
A barge fleeting area on the Henderson County side of the river would allow one empty fleet and two loaded fleets to be placed 30 to 50 feet off the bank. The fleet would hold up to 45 barges at full capacity, according to the Louisville Courier Press. The site would feature a conveyor belt and gravel access road to be built on top of fill. A 50-foot diameter loadout cell and eight 35-foot diameter mooring cells would be built in the river.
New rail lines, serviced by the Evansville Western Railway, would allow coal to be loaded and unloaded from up to 150 railcars and four locomotives at any one time. The Evansville Western Railway is a short-line that runs 125 miles between Okawville, Ill., and Evansville, Ind….
The Upper Mississippi River navigation season officially began April 11 with the arrival of the motor vessel Bernard G, owned by Alter Barge Line of Bettendorf, Iowa, in St. Paul, Minn., in the early morning with six loaded barges and one empty from St. Louis, Mo.
The Bernard G had waited at Lock 25 near St. Louis since March 31, according to Alter port engineer Tom Schmidt. The navigation season opened late this year due to scheduled maintenance work on Lock and Dam 25 that was completed April 4.
“Obviously, we could have used an earlier start date, but we’re not complaining,” said Schmidt.
The Bernard G set off with 12 barges loaded with fertilizer and four empties, dropping off some on the way….
Associated Terminals recently took delivery of two massive barge-mounted stevedoring cranes, naming them Ability and Attitude. The two cranes were christened March 25 in New Orleans.
Each new heavily constructed barge features a pedestal mounted Gottwald crane and all-new equipment and machinery. They will be used for transloading a variety of cargoes, including both materials and general cargo, between oceangoing vessels and river barges. They signify a massive investment in the future of stevedoring along the Lower Mississippi River.
Despite a troubling forecast, the event was held on a beautiful day. The weather, credited by some as the “luck of the Irish,” allowed more than 400 customers, vendors, employees and friends to gather for the christening celebration. Following the ceremony, the party moved, via second line, to The Plimsoll Club, now located at the Westin Canal Place Hotel.
At the ceremony, Associated Terminals President David Fennelly shared the story of hiring a public relations firm to give the company a motto during its early days. The firm met individually with company employees, including stevedores. Later, the firm returned, saying it had never worked for a company that had such a “family” relationship.
The public relations firm was hired in 1997 when Associated Terminals had only two floating cranes and 38 employees. The motto became the company’s single principle: “The Ability and Attitude to Accomplish Anything.”…
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