Weekly News Summary for June 16-22, 2008:
Is America’s transportation future being allowed to silt up?
That’s the picture that emerges from concerned dredging industry insiders and maritime advocates, from the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway to the Great Lakes and all the inland waterways between.
One Gulf dredge operator found himself without a government contract for the first time in perhaps twenty years this past April.
“We try to keep our five dredges operating all the time; it’s rare that we have more than one in the yard at any one time, ” he said. But this April, three at a time were idled.
This and similar stories attest to a slowdown in dredging contracts let by the Army Corps of Engineers.
At the annual meeting of the Western Dredging Association in St. Louis last week, Barry Holliday, technical director of the Dredging Contractors of America and a 33-year veteran of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, presented figures from a recent Corps survey.…
A series of three barge accidents followed one another closely in the same area of the Ohio River.
On June 6, two loaded barges filled with water and sank on the Ohio River at Mile 603.9, near the McAlpine Locks. The covered barges, carrying iron ore pellets, were part of a 12-barge tow pushed by the mv. Jerry Tinkey, operated by Ingram Barge Company of Nashville, Tenn.
According to Coast Guard Lt.j.g. John Adkins, buoy markers were placed around the sunken barges by that evening.
A Coast Guard press release said the Jerry Tinkey was pushing its tow upriver when two barges filled with water and sank. The barges sank away from the main channel. River traffic was halted from about 4:30 p.m. June 9 to 10:30 a.m. June 10.
The Jerry Tinkey, built in 1968 by Dravo Corporation, was acquired by Ingram in 1994. It is a twin-screw towing vessel, 168 feet long by 40 feet wide, with GM 16-645E7B engines generating 6,140 hp.
In a separate accident near the same spot at about 2:30 a.m., June 9, the mv. Helen Lay, operated by Lay Leasing Inc., was pushing a 15-barge tow of coal barges when it struck the bank and lost at least one barge.…
In the face of continued heavy rainfall on an already saturated Midwest and a rush of floodwaters heading south, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers activated flood-preparation measures along the Upper Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.
On June 11, the National Weather Service predicted two to four inches of rainfall on the Upper Mississippi and Missouri basins over the next three days. Sixteen of its gauges on the Upper Mississippi indicated major flooding, while 46 on the Mississippi and Missouri indicated moderate flooding.
However, the Corps said that relatively lower Missouri River levels are helping to reduce Mississippi River flows south of St. Louis.
The Corps announced the closure of nine locks along 216 miles of the Upper Mississippi, halting commercial traffic. The locks were to be closed in a staggered schedule, beginning with Locks 16 and 18 on June 12, and concluding with Locks 17 and 25 on June 17.
A recent update indicated that Lock 17 could close as early as the morning of June 13. Ron Fournier, corporate communications officer for the Rock Island Engineer District, told CNN the closures would last at least two weeks.…
The board of directors of the Heart of Illinois Regional Port District (TransPORT) has approved the framework for an agreement whereby Caterpillar Inc. will convey approximately 74 acres of industrial property near Mapleton, Ill., along with accompanying easements furnishing access to the Illinois Waterway, to TransPORT for the nominal sum of $1. The property, site of a former Caterpillar foundry, will be redeveloped by TransPORT into a manufacturing- and distribution-oriented industrial park with emphasis on intermodal and river transportation users.
This adaptive re-use will include demolition by Caterpillar of the main foundry building and recycling of structural steel for the manufacture of engine components at its adjacent operational foundry. Three existing buildings on the property will be retained for deployment by the port district and its potential tenants.
“Our discussions with site selectors indicated that the 1960s-era foundry structure posed logistical challenges to firms looking at assembly and warehousing operations,” remarked Dan Silverthorn, chairman of TransPORT’s board. “The demolition program will furnish TransPORT and its industrial clients with plenty of development and construction alternatives, and the three retained buildings will be well suited for occupancy early in the process.”…
Although the Olmsted Locks and Dam construction project on the lower Ohio River may be behind schedule because of funding problems, the long-awaited facility at least has its own towboat and dedicated lock wall and dam wash-down barge.
Officials from the Louisville Engineer District gathered at Paducah, Ky., May 23 to christen the Gordon M. Stevens, a new 3,000 hp. towboat assigned to work at Olmsted even though the dam is several years from completion.
The 124-foot by 33-foot, 10-inch towboat was delivered recently by Orange (Texas) Shipbuilding and is the fourth in a series of similar vessels. All have the same hull design and dimensions, although the deckhouse arrangements and some of the machinery are different among the four boats. All were designed by the Corps’ Marine Design Center in Philadelphia, Pa., utilizing the same basic hull design, although the first in the series has one less deck than the others and operates with a normal 6.5-foot draft. The three later deliveries were designed for a normal eight-foot draft while providing a normal 39.5-foot eyelevel in the pilothouse.
The first boat in the series was the Evanick for the Pittsburgh District in 2006, followed by the Kenneth Eddy for the Huntington District late in the same year and the General Warren for the St. Paul District last year.…
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