Weekly News Summary For April 20-26, 2009:
The Coast Guard will host a public meeting May 6 to receive comments about a proposed rulemaking for the use of electronic readers designed to read Transportation Worker Identification Credentials (TWICs).
The meeting will take place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Sheraton Crystal City in Arlington, Va. Interested parties will be able to file comments until May 26.
The entire TWIC development process has suffered from well-documented delays and budget overruns. Within that larger process, TWIC reader development has been controversial, not least because it is lagging behind the mandatory issuing of the cards.
Five companies have gone through a preliminary vetting process known as ICE, and are currently testing readers, according to Nelson Ludlow. Ludlow is chief executive officer of Intellicheck Mobilisa, one of the companies developing a hand-held TWIC reader.
April 15 was the deadline for all covered transportation workers to have TWICs. According to the Department of Homeland Security’s “TWIC Dashboard” web page, 1,054,091 TWIC cards have been printed, and 877,154 have been activated. Besides port and maritime workers, truck drivers and railroad workers are also required to have them. The cards include smart chips with biometric information, but the chips need an electronic reader to read them….
Timothy J. Casey, president and chief executive officer of K-Sea Transportation Corporation, East Brunswick, N.J., was elected chairman of the American Waterways Operators during the association’s spring convention in Washington, D.C., earlier this month.
George Foster, president of J.B. Marine Service Inc., St. Louis, Mo., was elected vice chairman.
In his remarks to the AWO Board of Directors following his election, Casey said that the key priorities for the coming year will include ensuring the new towing vessel inspection program develops appropriately.
“We have worked very hard with the Coast Guard to develop a reasonable, practical and unique approach to vessel inspection,” he said. Other challenges he cited include preventing mariners from having to make a second trip to an enrollment center to obtain their Transportation Worker Identification Credential, and defeating a proposal in the federal budget for a lockage tax….
In early April 2009, the public comment period (which had been extended) closed for a proposed $18 million harbor expansion of the 1,200 acre Tri-City Regional Port District in Illinois.
The district is calling the expansion South Harbor; it’s located below Locks 27 in the district’s south section. With 2,030 linear feet of river frontage, the facility would enable barge loading and unloading both upstream and downstream of Locks 27. The port’s current unloading facilities are all upstream (see WJ, February 23).
General manager Dennis Wilmsmeyer said the district is definitely interested in seeking help from President Obama’s infrastructure stimulus fund, but the district’s leadership is still studying the best way to apply for it.
“It’s a question of what improvement fits what pot of money,” he told the WJ.
But with or without the stimulus money, the port district’s future seems assured….
J.D. Shearer is proud of his family-owned business, Three Rivers Marine & Rail Terminals LP. “When you call, you get a decision-maker on the phone,” he said.
Shearer’s grandfather, father and uncle were all in the aggregate and asphalt business. When the Shearer family established Three Rivers in 1997 near Charleroi, Pa., they originally saw it simply as a cost-effective way to move their own products more quickly.
But the terminal grew and expanded, and the family sold its quarry and aggregate business in 1999. “We’d been hearing knocks on the door for years [from buyers],” said J.D. The time seemed right to make a move. “This became my baby,” he said. Now J.D. works with his brother-in-law, Scott Turer.
In addition to aggregates, the terminal now handles steel, coal, fertilizer, and especially road salt. “We handle anything, as long as it’s not too environmentally unfriendly,” said J.D. “We’re fairly well diversified; if one industry is in a slump, the others can take up the slack.”…
As a 38-year veteran of the terminal business in Cincinnati, Timothy Roddy has lived through economic downturns before.
So when an opportunity became available to partner with investors on a barge and rail terminal in late 2008, Roddy didn’t hesitate.
Although construction and renovation are still ongoing, the new Cincinnati Barge & Rail Terminal is open for business at Mile 468.5 of the Ohio River, about a mile upriver from downtown Cincinnati.
Roddy, who is general manager of the new facility, is interested in coiled steel, wire, structural steel, cut length bar stock, billets, aluminum and other cargoes. His terminal offers a 100,000-square-foot warehouse, and a 20-ton Clyde Whirley 360-degree crane that can handle general cargo, palletized and “super-sack” chemical cargoes. A dry-bulk facility is under construction, and should be ready by early summer, Roddy said….
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