Weekly News Summary for July 11–17, 2005:
The Senate voted 92 to 3 to approve H.R. 2419, the $31.5 billion Energy and Water Development Act, a fiscal year 2006 appropriations bill that includes $5.3 billion for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Last May, the House passed a bill calling for $4.7 billion for the Corps.
Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), chairman of the Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, said his subcommittee could not have lived with the lower House bill.
Funds appropriated for the Corps in the Senate bill include $378 million to complete Inland Waterway Trust Fund-financed lock and dam improvement projects on the inland waterways system….
The New Orleans Engineer District will conduct two public scoping meetings for the initiation of a dredged material management plan study to investigate dredged material placement for the next 20 years of maintenance dredging of the Calcasieu River and Pass, La.
The meetings will be held at 7 p.m. July 18 at Calcasieu Parish Police Jury Building, 1015 Pithon Street, and at 7 p.m. July 19 at Cameron Parish Courthouse.
The Calcasieu River and Pass, La., project does not have adequate dredged material disposal areas for the long-term maintenance of the project. Existing disposal sites are at or near capacity, some disposal sites have been substantially eroded into adjacent water bodies, other disposal areas have been lost to commercial development or landowners have rescinded permission for their property to be used for placement of dredged material. As a result, remaining disposal areas cannot accommodate the volume of dredged material needed to maintain the Calcasieu River and Pass, La., navigation channel to project-authorized dimensions, and the New Orleans Engineer District has been forced to reduce channel dimensions in some reaches….
The 600-foot auxiliary lock at Melvin Price Locks and Dam returned to operation on July 1, despite some precautions that are currently being made due to hydraulic pressure bleed down on one of the upstream gate leafs.
The chamber has been out of operation since October 3, 2004, when the downstream miter gate was damaged when mechanical equipment failure resulted in the gate leafs swinging past the secure closed position known as miter. Both leafs were heavily warped, metal was torn and there was substantial damage to concrete anchorages and other mechanical parts.
The $12 million repair operation has been conducted without causing a bottleneck for commercial river commerce, with the 1,200-foot main chamber absorbing the entire load during the repair operations.
The 2005 Greater New Orleans Barge Fleeting Association (GNOBFA) River and Marine Industry Seminar, scheduled for its 24th annual presentation, is scheduled to be held at the InterContinental New Orleans on September 14–16.
As in the past, the seminar will begin on a Wednesday and conclude the following Friday morning.
"The format of the seminar for 2005 will touch on many of the aspects of the everyday problems faced with the marine industry, including personal injury, collision, seizure of vessels, insurance, mediation and whatever else might be brought out in those particular topics," said Alan J. Savoie of Marine Centre Inc., seminar director for the last 10 years or so. "We will again present this seminar in the manner that is acceptable to industry personnel. This is the ’nuts and bolts’ seminar of the marine industry and it will be presented in the same manner this year.
"Maurice C. Hebert Jr., who has been the moderator and organizer of the speakers and topics of this seminar since its inception in 1982, has put together a very comprehensive program with outstanding speakers. We expect the seminar to be extremely well received and informative this year."…
Jantran Inc. christened the towboat Leland Speakes recently. It is the latest of five newly acquired line haul vessels the firm has put into service over the last two years. The boats replace others with less horsepower, allowing Jantran to increase the size of its tows and better serve its customers, a company official said.
Based in Rosedale, Miss., the company hauls mostly grain, fertilizer and steel between the Gulf and the Arkansas River.
The christening ceremony for the Leland Speakes was held June 17 at the company’s facility in Rosedale. Jantran bought the towboat from Kirby Inland Marine, which operated it as the City of Beaumont. It was built in 1967 by Jeffboat as the Mobil Leader.
The vessel measures 154 by 44 feet and is powered by twin GM 16-645E5 diesels rated 5,000 hp. total, with Falk 4:1 reduction. It has a retractable pilothouse, kort nozzles, accommodations for a crew of 12 and a fuel capacity of 94,383 gallons.
Its namesake—one of Jantran’s original stockholders—owns a real estate appraisal, development and financing firm, Leland Speakes & Associates, in Cleveland, Miss.
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