Weekly News Summary For April 26 - May 2, 2010:
Washington, D.C.—The House Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee met April 15 to hear additional proposals for a new Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) that could be introduced this year.
Currently, the subcommittee is evaluating more than 2,200 project requests from both Democratic and Republican members of Congress for consideration in this year’s bill.
Among witnesses delivering requests to the subcommittee was Stephen D. Little, president and chief executive officer of Crounse Corporation and chairman of the Inland Waterways Users Board. Little detailed the recommendations of the Inland Marine Transportation System (IMTS) Capital Investment Strategy Team (CIS) and urged the subcommittee to include in its next WRDA the provisions necessary to implement the recommendations endorsed by the Users Board and several other major waterway industry groups.
Little told the subcommittee that the CIS Team “has produced a comprehensive, consensus-based, joint industry/Corps of Engineers set of proposals to address the capital investments that should be made over the next 20 years in order to preserve and enhance the performance of our nation’s inland waterway transportation system.”
The CIS Team proposed a $7.6 billion 20-year inland waterway capital investment program that would entail an average annual investment level of $380 million, including $110 million that would come from the Inland Waterways Trust Fund and $270 million from general revenue. Under the plan, the trust fund would be fed by a 30- to 45-percent increase in the current 20-cents-a-gallon diesel fuel tax….
At about 2 a.m. April 19, the mv. Misty Dawn sank in the upper Kanawha River at Mile 37 along with a barge. One crewman swam ashore with a life jacket and was treated and released from a hospital, but the captain did not escape.
The Kanawha River was closed along a two-mile stretch while rescue and pollution control operations were underway, and was closed again during salvage operations that began April 22. Members of the Coast Guard Marine Safety Unit Huntington (W.Va.), the Winfield, Bancroft and Teays Valley Fire Departments, and the Virginia State Police assisted in searching for the body.
The U.S. Coast Guard and Putnam County rescue crews recovered a body from the pilothouse of the sunken boat at about 12:15 p.m. The Coast Guard later identified the body as that of Capt. Greg Smith of Catlettsburg, Ky., brother and business partner of river captain and long-time Waterways Journal correspondent Capt. David Smith.
The Misty Dawn was pushing a crane barge toward shore where it sank near Mile 37, near Vossloh Track Materials Inc., according to the Charleston Gazette. The boat, operated by Marquet Services Inc. of Ashland, Ky., had been hired by Ross Brothers Constructors of Ashland.
Eight hours later, the boat began taking on water near the John Amos power plant. The Coast Guard said it was treating the sinking of the barge and the boat as two separate, unrelated incidents….
Inland Rivers Ports and Terminals Inc., the national association of terminal operators, port authority officials and other port-related interests, met in Mobile, Ala., recently to elect officers and discuss such issues as port financing, marketing and operations. The annual meeting was held at the Battle House Hotel, April 14–16. About 200 people were in attendance.
Larry “Butch” Brown of Jackson, Miss., executive director of the Mississippi Department of Transportation and president of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, was the keynote speaker.
IRPT members elected Maurice Owen of Owensboro, Ky., president. A 20-year veteran of the inland waterway port industry, he recently joined Yellow Banks River Terminal LLC as vice president of sales and marketing. He began his river career as port director for the Owensboro Riverport Authority and was most recently with Cooper T. Smith Stevedoring. He succeeds Jerry Sailors of Montgomery, Ala., president of Coosa-Alabama River Improvement Association, who becomes chairman of the board.
Mike Tagert of Columbus, Miss., administrator of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway Development Authority, was elected first vice president; Rich Cooper, executive director of the Ports of Indiana, was elected second vice president; and Brett Bourgeois, executive director of the New Orleans Board of Trade, was elected secretary-treasurer. Deirdre McGowan was re-elected executive director.
A major focus of the program was, naturally, the port of Mobile, which is now the ninth largest U.S. port in total tonnage, according to James Lyons, director of the Alabama State Port Authority. It was most recently the 14th, he said, crediting its growth to an aggressive expansion program that includes the $100 million Pinto Island Terminal, which will serve ThyssenKrupp’s $4.3 billion steel mill, and a new intermodal container handling facility….
Jo-Ellen Darcy, assistant secretary of the Army (civil works), will speak during the 10th meeting of the Missouri River Recovery Implementation Committee, to be held April 27–29 at United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck, N.D.
Darcy will speak during the opening session of the meeting. The remainder of the meeting will include information-sharing presentations, work group meetings, and business sessions. The meeting also will include information-sharing sessions on the ongoing Army Corps of Engineers’ ecosystem recovery program, tribal issues including a discussion of tribal losses as a result of Missouri River development, and the current and projected water supply conditions in the basin.
The business sessions will include discussion and possible recommendations on the Corps of Engineers’ Fiscal Year 2011 Recovery Program budget; transmittal to the Corps of an extensive summary of MRRIC members’ views about social, economic, tribal and cultural values concerning the Missouri River; and scientific questions that may be referred to independent scientists for study. MRRIC makes decisions by consensus; and, for substantive recommendations to federal agencies, consensus must be reached at two separate meetings….
The agreement will increase cooperation, such as joint marketing and coordination on modernization and expansion projects, and help boost trade along the increasingly important “all-water route” from Asia to the U.S. East and Gulf coasts via the Panama Canal.
“This alliance is an example of the ACP’s strategy to forge partnerships with U.S. ports to promote the ‘All-Water Route,’ through the Panama Canal,” Zubieta said. “These alliances will help improve services for our customers, generate commercial activity and foster economic development. “As the global economy recovers, we must continually pursue smart business partnerships. The exchange of ideas and information-sharing demonstrate our desire to execute solutions for the long-term growth needs of the shipping community and international trade.”…
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