Capsule News Summary For May 2–8, 2005:
With only 5 percent of spoil material being contaminated, the dredging industry has gotten a bad rap from misinformed environmental activists, said Lawrence M. Patella, executive director of the Western Dredging Association (WDA) and a former Navy commander.
“Dredging creates a strong economy and does more to create a cleaner marine environment than any other tool or activity used to date,” Patella countered.
Patella, who managed dredging operations on the 110-mile Columbia River Navigation Channel from 1978 to 1999, said educating the public to the facts of dredging is of prime importance. He has served as WDA executive director for the past 12 years.
National defense interests and “our successful participation in the global marketplace” depend on the rapid access to land-based facilities, he said.
“This participation and access is only possible if state-of-the-art shipping vessels can safely operate in our navigable waterways,” Patella explained. “The safety of these ships depends on our ability to construct and maintain, through dredging, our ports, harbors, terminals and vast inland and costal waterway systems.”
Speaking at the Inland Rivers Ports & Terminals annual conference at the New Orleans Board of Trade on April 21, Patella said it is mostly the runoff from land that dumps pollutants into the water, and “dredging is the process by which those pollutants are removed from the waterways.”…
Thirty barges and two towboats were loaded onto a seagoing barge for delivery to Argentina last week at the France Road Container Terminal on the Industrial Canal in New Orleans.
The barges and boats were the second shipment to the three-year-old Fluviomar International, S.A. of Buenos Aries for use on the Parana/Paraguay river system, said Bill Kinzeler II, the project manager. Earlier in the year, Fluviomar took delivery of an additional 27 hopper barges and two towboats.
Seaspan of Vancouver, B.C., provided the Boabarge 16, a semi-submersible barge measuring 454 by 100 by 30 feet, which was towed by Atlantic Towing’s 7,200 hp. tug Atlantic Hickory for the planned 38-day voyage.
Kinzeler’s firm, Running Rivers LLC of Louisville, Ky., located the barges and provided the preparation for the shipping. To bear the weight, the bottom barges of the three-high stack had to be stiffened internally for the shipping configuration.
The barges were positioned, stacked and wired together prior to loading, Kinzeler explained. After that was completed, the Boabarge 16 was towed into stream by two tugs and sunk to a point that only the fo’s’cle bow was visible, he continued….
Kirby Corporation announced record net earnings for the first quarter ended March 31 of $13,279,000, or 52 cents per share, compared with net earnings of $9,020,000, or 36 cents per share, for the 2004 first quarter. The 2005 first quarter results were in line with Kirby’s April 14 announcement that earnings would exceed 50 cents per share and above Kirby’s original published earnings guidance range of 42 cents to 48 cents per share.
Consolidated revenues for the 2005 first quarter were a record $184,444,000, an increase of 17 percent over $157,315,000 reported for the 2004 first quarter. Revenues for the marine transportation segment for the 2005 first quarter increased 16 percent and operating income increased 42 percent compared with the first quarter of 2004.
The higher results reflected strong petrochemical and black oil volumes, improved weather conditions in March, the impact of contract rate increases during 2004 and in the 2005 first quarter and higher spot market prices. Spot market rates for most product lines averaged 4 to 5 percent higher than the 2004 fourth quarter….
The Houston-Galveston navigation channel project is nearing the end, with completion scheduled for May. The project will include the deepening and widening of the Houston Ship Channel and deepening of the Galveston Channel.
Both channels presently have an authorized depth of 40 feet. The project will bring the shipping lanes to an authorized depth of 45 feet with a minimum 530-foot bottom width. The entrance channel extends from Bolivar Roads to 14.4 miles offshore and will have a minimum width of 800 feet. The Galveston Ship Channel will be deepened to 45 feet, but its channel already has sufficient depth.
The project involved the cooperation of the Port of Houston as the local sponsor for the cost-share agreement. The project itself involves nine dredging contracts, one mitigation project and three contracts for grass planting. The total estimated cost is $705,230,000. Additional costs are being borne by owners of an estimated 90 pipelines crossing the channel, all of which had to be removed or lowered to a greater depth because of the channel deepening….
Paducah-McCracken County Port director Ken Canter may have set a precedent recently when he publicly invited a group of non-river industry citizens behind the city’s floodwall to see what is actually happening along the city’s busy riverfront. In the past, the city’s commercial industry has generally tried to limit public access.
Few local residents not connected with the area’s river industry are aware of the many activities or the economic impact the industry has on the local economy, he told the Lone Oak Lions Club April 25 as he extended an invitation to the group to tour the port and see firsthand the variety of products and the impressive tonnage handled by the port.
“Probably, one of the most challenging things we’ve done over the last several years as an industry is to try to make ourselves better known to the community,” he said.
Canter spoke of Paducah’s economic advantage of being in the center of the nation’s 25,000-mile inland waterways system as the local marine industry generates a $155 million economic impact on the Paducah-McCracken County economy. He went on to say more than 3,000 jobs in the Paducah area are directly related to the river industry, noting that 23 major towing companies have either headquarters or operations centers located in the city or county. More than 150 area service or supply companies also depend on the river industry, he added….
Coast Guard boat crews from Station Sabine, Texas, rescued three men from the Sabine Channel, and a fourth crewman was rescued by another vessel, after a tanker and a crew boat collided just before noon April 28.
The Coast Guard received the call from the Sabine pilot’s association that the 784-foot tanker Genmar Strength and the 101-foot crew boat Rene I had collided in the Sabine Channel between the jetties where the channel enters the Gulf of Mexico. The Rene I capsized and sank with four crewmembers aboard.
A Coast Guard boat crew was dispatched and rescued two crewmembers from the water near the Rene I. A third crewmember, found unconscious, was rescued from the capsized boat. The crew of a Sabine pilot boat rescued the fourth crewmember….
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