Freighters carry less because of low lakes
September 30, 07 by TheFleetBy Hugo Miller | Source: The Buffalo News
Record-low water levels in Lake Superior have forced shipping companies to reduce their cargoes, shrinking deliveries of coal and iron ore to manufacturers across the Great Lakes of the U.S. and Canada.
“In a normal year in August, we should be setting our best cargoes,” said Glen Neksavil, vice president of the Cleveland- based Lake Carriers’ Association. Instead, “our vessels have been losing as much as 10 percent.”
The shallow waters result from a lack of precipitation and winter ice cover, along with insufficient dredging, limiting the areas where ships can operate safely. Lake Superior feeds the four other Great Lakes, which together hold a fifth of the world’s fresh surface water and are vital for delivering ore and coal from Minnesota and Wyoming to Detroit and Chicago.
Great Lakes cargo on U.S. vessels fell 5.1 percent through Aug. 31, according to the Carriers’ Association. The trade group represents 18 shipping companies that move as much as 125 million tons of coal, iron ore, limestone, sand and cement a year used to make electricity and build cars and homes.
“The temperature of waters have been warming, which forces a reduction of ice cover and means we get more and more evaporation,” said Carl Woodruff, a Detroit- based hydraulic engineer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
With the lack of rain, “this is combining to lower lake levels,” he said.
Lake Superior’s average level fell last month to a record low of 183 meters (600.5 feet), half a meter below its long-term average, according to the Corps of Engineers.
The biggest coal haul of the summer from the port of Superior, Wisconsin, in the far western corner of Lake Superior, to the St. Clair River, along southeast Michigan, was 64,300 tons, said Neksavil. The load should be closer to 71,000 tons on the region’s 1,000-foot coal ships, which are almost as long as a U.S. Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, he said.
An 8,000-ton difference is enough to generate all of Detroit’s electricity needs for three hours, according to Neksavil. A similar amount of iron ore provides sufficient steel to build 6,000 cars in Michigan.
Even smaller ships are affected by the dropping water levels. Montreal-based Fednav Ltd. exports grain eastward through the Great Lakes and up the shallower St. Lawrence Seaway toward the Atlantic Ocean, which demands lighter vessels.
Fednav reduced vessel clearance by six to eight inches this spring, said Paul Rondeau, vice president of operations. That cut 750 tons from a typical cargo of 22,000 tons. Shipping owners must absorb the higher costs of added sailings.
