Congress to debate Soo Locks expansion
December 17, 07 by TheFleetIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
By Bill Shea | Source: Crain’s Detroit Business
Congress is expected to begin debate in February on how it will fund a $342 million plan to expand the Soo Locks to better allow the largest freighters easier access to lower Great Lakes ports such as Detroit.
Currently, the 40-year-old Poe Lock handles all 1,000-foot freighters, which carry the bulk of the 60 million tons of iron ore and 42 million tons of coal that annually come across Lake Superior. The 1,200-foot Poe is the newest of the locks, which are federally owned and operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The plan is to take two World War I-era locks, one of which is not used and the other rarely, and combine them into a single new lock that would be 110 feet wide and 1,200 feet long. That would provide a redundancy capacity in case the Poe closed for repairs, malfunctions or sabotage.
