Weekly News Summary For September 8-14, 2008:
George Lange of Lange Towing in Morgan City, La., sounded relieved. The only damage done to his property by Hurricane Gustav’s rain and wind, he said, was a torn-off tile roof. “Get me a new roof and I’ll be doing fine.”
Hurricane Gustav dealt the New Orleans area a weaker blow than anticipated, although the town of Houma got the storm’s full brunt. Federal, state and local authorities, mindful of post-Katrina criticisms, drew widespread media praise for well-executed response plans that included evacuating almost the entire population of New Orleans. The area’s levees, strengthened but not yet ready for another Katrina, mostly held.
Gustav’s rains and winds, although only tropical-storm strength, still disrupted the region’s waterways. But like the civil authorities, river and waterways companies have climbed a steep learning curve since Katrina, and this time they executed dispersal and evacuation plans to minimize any damage to assets.
On September 3, the Coast Guard reported that the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway was open from Mile 44, east of the Harvey Locks, to Mile 191. The Atchafalaya River was open from Mile 0 to Mile 45, and the Morgan City-Port Allen Alternate Route was open from Mile 0 to Mile 30.
The Houma Navigation Canal, Port of New Iberia and Port Fourchon remained closed….
Federal funding for the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway will be “basically flat” for fiscal year 2009, said Wynne Fuller, the Corps of Engineers director of operations for the Mobile District. With an anticipated increase in the cost of electric power from the Tennessee Valley Authority, Fuller said there will be less dredging and a growing maintenance backlog for the waterway, which opened in 1984.
Fuller was speaking to more than 350 people who attended the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway Development Council annual meeting held at the Marriott Grand Hotel in Point Clear, Ala. Last year’s attendance was 287 at the three-day conference that focuses on development along the 234-mile waterway, in addition to navigation and political concerns.
Ingram Barge Company’s Steve Alley, the council chairman, presided over the opening session with Col. Byron Johns, commander of the Mobile Engineer District, explaining the Corps’ role in both the Tenn-Tom and in Central and South America. The Mobile District includes seven deep-water ports, 2,200 miles of inland waters, 21 shallow-water ports and 22 locks.
Fuller explained that the federal government uses performance measures based on ton-miles traffic to provide funding under the operations and maintenance (O&M) budget once a project is built. That formula determines high-usage versus low-usage waterways and weighs O&M funding heavily toward the high-usage waterways….
The Corps of Engineers will dedicate a lock and dam on the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River in honor of a Corps official who was instrumental in getting the waterway built.
In an October 6 ceremony, the Little Rock Engineer District will rename Lock and Dam 5 the Col. Charles D. Maynard Lock and Dam.
Maynard was the Little Rock District Engineer from 1962–1965, where he directed planning, design and construction of 13 locks of the navigation system. At the time, it was the largest civil works project ever undertaken by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In 1963, he was the official host for President John F. Kennedy for the Greers Ferry Dam dedication. Following his retirement in 1965, Maynard served as chairman of the Water Resources Association of America, president of the Arkansas Basin Association, and chairman of the Arkansas Waterways Commission….
Saying he wanted to meet industry salvage assets before a time of crisis, “at a wedding, not a funeral,” Lt. Cmdr. Ray Lechner held a meeting with salvors at the Port of Greater Baton Rouge offices in Port Allen, La., on August 26.
This is Lechner’s first command. Previously he was a team member of the Coast Guard’s Salvage Engineering Response Team (SERT), a six-member unit working out of the Marine Safety Center in Washington.
SERT members assist Federal On-Scene Coordinators (FOSCs) with technical salvage evaluations, using sophisticated computer modeling to determine best salvage procedures.
The SERT team members include Coast Guard graduates of marine architect schools, including those with masters degrees. Other expertise includes electrical and mechanical engineering—Lechner’s expertise.
“Sometimes brute strength is not what is required for salvage,” said Lt. Dan Cost, a SERT marine architect with an advanced degree. Cost directed a slide presentation via conference call from his Washington office….
With its current fleet of six towboats and 34 tank barges—and plans to expand to nine boats and 42 barges by the end of 2009—Golding Barge Line is sticking to its strategy of slow, steady growth. After 2009, the company is going to take a pause, said Steve Golding, owner.
But pausing to christen its new vessels has not been an option. The Vicksburg, Miss.-based transporter of clean petroleum and petrochemical products prefers “workin’ christenings,” catching the boats on the fly so as not to take away from their timely delivery of products to customers.
Such was the case recently when Golding Barge christened the new vessels Nathan Golding and Thomas Golding.
“The Nathan stopped at Vicksburg with its empty tank barge tow just long enough for us to break the champagne and bless the boat,” Golding said. The christening took place January 7 at Big River Shipyard.
“We did the Thomas at Garyville, La., while its crew was waiting to load a tank barge tow at a nearby refinery,” he continued. That christening occurred at St. John’s Fleet on August 3….
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