Weekly News Summary For August 20-26, 2007:
Florida Marine Transporters Inc., headquartered in Mandeville, La., has announced the signing of a multi-vessel contract with Jeffboat to build five 4,900 hp towboats. Construction is expected to start in the fourth quarter of 2008, with the first vessel scheduled for delivery in August 2009, and additional deliveries every three months thereafter.
“These vessels were designed to add further efficiencies within our company’s infrastructure,” said Dennis Pasentine, owner of Florida Marine. “These vessels are designed to replace some of our older river vessels and will provide comfort and safety for our employees, environmental friendliness to both air and water, and efficiencies in fuel burn with maximum river ton miles for our customers.”
Florida Marine has more than 650 employees throughout the inland waterway system, transporting gasoline, blending components, petrochemicals, asphalt and residual fuel oil in its tank barge fleet, currently consisting of 135 jumbo barges.
Florida Marine is also midway through a 30-boat new-build program of 2,600 hp. towboats at Eastern Shipbuilding Group, and is contemplating construction of additional line-haul vessels. When finished, the company envisions a fleet of 65 boats and 200 barges.
“We have been building tank barges and towboats for the past several years in order to continue our pursuit of providing the newest, state-of-the-art equipment to our customers and employees,” added John Roberts, president. “Market conditions have allowed us to upgrade our fleet as we ready ourselves for the future of this industry.”…
Ribbon cutting ceremonies were held August 9 at Chalmette Slip for the $6 million bulk cargo storage facility at the St. Bernard Port, Harbor & Terminal District.
The 40,000-square-foot facility is the largest of its kind on the Lower Mississippi River. It will handle mostly incoming fertilizer from deep-draft vessels and barges. Associated Terminals of Reserve, La., will operate the facility and ConAgra International Fertilizer, a division of ConAgra Foods Inc., will be the primary customer, having signed a three-year lease.
Calling it a “Partnership in Progress,” Associated Terminals President David Fennelly said there was a need for the facility to handle an increased volume of incoming fertilizer, which resulted in the partnership with the Port of St. Bernard and Con Agra.
There were three criteria for the new facility, said Glenn Schexnayder, Associated Terminals vice president-sales: close to the water, adjacent to a Class 1 rail line, and sufficient land for initial operations and growth….
Almost five dozen tows were backed up on both sides of Ohio River Locks & Dam 52 when the 1,200-foot chamber was reopened to traffic August 14 following a scheduled shutdown for repairs. Lockmaster Jeff Kelly said there were 56 tows waiting that morning, even though traffic had been passing through the smaller, 600-foot chamber during the weeklong repair project.
The “temporary” chamber was built in 1969 and has been in operation far past its originally intended life span of 25 years. It was closed August 7 to allow scheduled repairs to the upper miter gates and replacement of the bushings in the gate arms in addition to repairs to the hydraulic system that operates the gates. In spite of triple-digit temperatures and heat indexes reaching more than 110 degrees, the project ran only one day longer than anticipated, Kelly told The Waterways Journal.
Most of the major work was handled by the Corps’ Louisville Repair Station, which sent a team of specialists and equipment to the site, Kelly said. Much of the hydraulic repair and other maintenance items were tackled by the lock’s regular personnel. He said the crews worked in 20-hour shifts throughout the closure, although they took many breaks to rest and cool off as much as possible, during the oppressive working conditions. There were no injuries or heat-related incidents to report, he added.
Traffic backed up because most of the dry-cargo tows transiting the lower Ohio River contain 15 barges, which required the tows to be split in two to accommodate the 600-foot auxiliary lock chamber. Many of the tank-barge tows, even with fewer barges, were still too long to pass through the chamber without making a double-locking, knock-out or set-over, all of which required extra time….
Worth Hager, who represented the inland waterways transportation industry in Washington for decades, most recently as president of the National Waterways Conference, died in her sleep August 10.
A graduate of the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, Hager was working on Capitol Hill for a congressman from North Carolina when NWC hired her as a staff assistant in 1981.
“When Worth came to work for the National Waterways Conference in 1981, she was introduced to the ‘waterways world,’ and it soon became her passion,” said Harry N. Cook, NWC president emeritus. “She was inquisitive, always eager to learn all she could about our issues. In the process, she made countless friends in the industry, Congress, Corps of Engineers and other agencies.”
In 1982, she moved from NWC to the National Association of Dredging Contractors (now the Dredging Contractors of America), as the association’s Washington representative.
She rejoined NWC in 1995. In 1999 she was named assistant to the president, and served as vice president-public affairs before being named president upon Cook’s retirement in 2003. She resigned as NWC president in June of this year….
Installation of a second floodgate at the southern end of Bayou Lafourche below the town of Golden Meadow, La., is scheduled to begin in November and be completed before the start of the 2008 hurricane season, said Windell A. Curole, general manager of the South Lafourche Levee District.
Combined with the existing Leon Theriot Floodgate, it will make a lock chamber that will allow tows and fishing boats to pass through the gate during high water.
Theriot was the first president of the levee district. Curole credited Theriot with being powerful enough to block political corruption from infecting the levee board, as was the case elsewhere.
Increasingly, the existing floodgate has been closed to marine traffic because of high water, caused mostly by southeasterly winds that back water up into Bayou Lafourche from the Gulf of Mexico.
As much as 50 percent (by weight) of the material destined for offshore oil and gas exploration and production travels through the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW) and the Bayou Lafourche floodgate to Port Fourchon, Curole said….
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