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Source: TSA press release via Marketwire

Today, port workers, longshore workers, truckers and others at the Port of Toledo will begin to enroll in the Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) program. The program’s goal is to ensure that any individual who has unescorted access to secure areas of port facilities and vessels has received a thorough background check and is not a security threat.

Nationwide, more than 1 million workers with unescorted access to secure areas will apply for TWIC by the end of 2008.

Read the full release at Marketwire >>

Ruthie Ackerman | Source: Forbes.com

Lower steel prices, unplanned outages in Canada, acquisition-related costs and job cuts in Europe contributed to an 88% plunge in the largest U.S. steelmaker’s fourth-quarter profit…

Read the full story at Forbes.com >>

Source: ABC12 (includes online video)

Tuesday afternoon Coast Guard employees from different stations around the country converged on Station Saginaw River.

It was the trainees themselves who had to take the plunge into the icy cold river and then be rescued by their classmates.

The Coast Guard does this so future rescuers know what it’s like from a potential victim’s standpoint.

Read the full story, watch video at ABC12 >>

By Elizabeth Shaw | Source: The Flint Journal

FLINT - Michigan shipwreck hunter David Trotter will be among the guest speakers on hand Saturday for the grand opening of the new exhibit at Sloan Museum and Longway Planetarium, “Treasure!”

Trotter will take visitors on a video tour of his underwater discoveries, while fellow Great Lakes shipwrecks expert Ric Mixter presents a program on Great Lakes treasure and cutter rescues.

Valerie van Heest, director of Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates, will present “Icebound Found! The Ordeal of the SS Michigan.”

Full story, schedule and directions at The Flint Journal >>

Source: Lake Superior State University

Sault Ste. Marie, MI - Folk singer Lee Murdock, who sings a vivid musical portrait of life on the Great Lakes, will bring his flair for storytelling in songs to Lake Superior State University on Feb. 15.

Tickets, $10 for adults and $5 for students of all ages, are available now for Murdock’s performance, which begins at 8 p.m. in the LSSU Arts Center auditorium.

Murdock is renowned Midwestern musician who has released 12 CDs and two books of folk and maritime music. Read the rest of this entry »

By CATHARINE HADLEY | Source: Port Clinton News Herald

MARBLEHEAD –Coast Guard personnel have been taking Ohio’s only ice boat out on Lake Erie for training missions.

Five crew members of the U.S. Coast Guard Station in Marblehead braved chilly temperatures this week for a 1 1/2-hour training session which began and ended at Dempsey Fishing Access area in Danbury Township.

The vessel, which is also sometimes called an air boat, is one of only a handful used by the Coast Guard. “We’re the only one in Ohio that’s got one,” the officer said.

The vessel is mainly used for ice rescues. “It’s mainly for shallow water, and that’s why we got it, for the ice,” the officer said.

Read the full story (with pictures) at the Port Clinton News Herald >>

VINCE VERSACE | Source: Daily Commercial News

Trillium [Power] intends to build a 140-turbine offshore wind farm between 20 to 25 kilometres from the Prince Edward County shoreline in Eastern Ontario. The wind farm would generate 710 megwatts of power, enough to power 250,000 homes in Ontario.

Wind at Trillium’s project site has been measured at nine metres per second and in recent storms reached top speeds of 110 km/h. There are no shipping lanes in the area and the wind farm will create a “reef effect” for aquatic life. Also, bird flight patterns on the Great Lakes are generally along the shore and rarely reach out into the middle of the lake, Kourtoff says.

Read the full story at the Daily Commercial News >>

By Kari Lydersen | Source: Washington Post

The low water has forced freighters that haul iron ore, steel, limestone and other raw materials to lighten their loads and change their routes to avoid running aground in shallow harbors and waterways.

“They literally do load these ships by the inch,” said Stuart H. Theis, executive director of the U.S. Great Lakes Shipping Association. “To the lowest common denominator, the shallowest point along the way.”

In the past two years, freighters have hit bottom or had to turn around in numerous locations, including Muskegon Harbor and the Saginaw River in Michigan and Rochester, N.Y.

…LCA spokesman Glen Nekvasil said vessels were running an average of 15 percent below capacity last season. Depending on the size of the ship, every inch of lost draft — the depth to which a ship descends — means 50 to 270 tons less cargo.

“And we’re not talking inches, we’re talking feet,” Nekvasil said. “It’s not just affecting the steamships; it’s the steelworkers who depend on that iron ore, the workers at the limestone quarries. We move the raw materials that keep everyone else going.”

Read the full story at the Washington Post >>

By JUDY PASTERNAK | Source: WCF Courier (Cedar Falls, IA)

A more immediate challenge is transportation, from missing links in the rail routes to silted-up Great Lakes shipping channels, which raise concerns that coal might not be so simple to get at after all.

“Can coal deliver?” asked Gary Hunt, president of Global Energy Advisors, a Sacramento, Calif.-based unit of Global Energy Decisions. “The answer is no,” he said, not without “billions and billions” spent on improvements for mining capacity, railroads and shipping.

We Energies, which provides electricity in Wisconsin and Michigan, said it had faced at least $45 million in higher fuel costs as a result of rail disruptions. Like other producers in the Upper Midwest, the company tried to find relief by shipping coal across the Great Lakes. But lake channels have silted up, creating a “dredging crisis,” in the words of James H.I. Weakley, president of the Lake Carriers’ Association.

The Lake Erie port of Dunkirk, N.Y. — site of a coal-fired power plant — closed to shipping in 2005. A freighter ran aground at the Lake Huron port of Saginaw, Mich., last year. With ships loading 6,000 to 9,000 tons less than their capacity in order to stay afloat, in the shallower channels, coal-cargo totals on the lakes this year are down 8 percent from a year ago, the carriers’ group said.

Eye-opening full story at the WCF Courier >>

BY ANDREA HOLECEK  | Source: NWI Times

Steel production at local mills fell this month from exceptionally high levels in December, and officials have varying ideas why.

The drop to 470,000 tons produced during the week of Jan. 19 was down from 540,000 tons recorded the week of Jan. 5. Officials say the numbers reflect an adjustment to more normal levels, that were in the 450,000- 500,000-ton-per-week range during the same time period in 2006 and 2007.

U.S. Steel Corp, spokesman John Armstrong said there were some “planned maintenance outages” on its Gary Works blast furnaces that affected its production during those weeks.

Paul Gipson, president of United Steelworkers Local 6787 at ArcelorMittal Burns Harbor, said the first quarter of the year usually is the weakest. He theorized the production drop could be “seasonal variations” in demand from the automobile industry.

Gipson added the mill currently is operating at maximum production levels.

Read the full story at the NWI Times >>

Source: Dredging News Online

The Lake Carriers’ Association says coal shipments on the Great Lakes fell below 39.3 million net tons in 2007, a decrease of 6.6 per cent compared to 2006.

Loadings were 4.9 per cent off the trade’s five-year average.

Lightloading impacted the trade all year, and turned into a virtual stranglehold in December. By month’s end, the largest coal cargoes barely topped 60,000 tons. When water levels were high in the late 1990s and offset the lack of adequate dredging, the same vessels were carrying nearly 71,000 tons each trip.

For those ships to leave port with only 60,000 tons in their holds meant more than 15 per cent of the vessels’ optimum carrying capacity was unused.

By MIKE FORNES | Source: Cheboygan Daily Tribune

CHEBOYGAN - The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Mackinaw was scheduled to arrive back at its Cheboygan homeport Sunday [January 20, 2008], concluding a week of training and ice work that began in the Lower St. Mary’s River and concluded in Green Bay, Wis.

The Mac stopped in St. Ignace briefly to load buoys left there last fall and bring them to the Cheboygan Buoy Base for maintenance work.

As the Jan. 15 Soo Locks closure neared, the Mackinaw traveled from the east end of the Straits of Mackinac all the way to the western shore of Lake Michigan assessing ice conditions and training for the upcoming icebreaking season. While transiting the St. Mary’s River last week, the Mackinaw trained on icebreaking techniques, held damage control and engineering drills, trained in ice rescue techniques and replaced a discrepant buoy.

The buoy, a green winter navigational aid, marked a shoal near Lime Island and had lost much of its paint due to the ice flow and was no longer serving as an efficient aid to navigation.

“With ice surrounding the buoy and temperatures below freezing, the Mackinaw’s deck force swapped the aid with a new winter mark to ensure safe navigation for vessels transiting the river,” said Cmdr John Little, the Mackinaw’s captain.

The ship completed its time at Green Bay by establishing tracks through 12-inch thick plate ice with six inches of snow cover. The job was done while escorting and assisting several commercial lakers bound for winter lay-up in Sturgeon Bay, Wis.

“This ice field remains very dynamic as strong southerly winds continually push floes together causing many two to four-foot thick windrows,” Little added. “By weeks end more than 15 ships will have gone to lay-up at Bay Shipbuilding in Sturgeon Bay following the locks closure.”

Little said that the largest commercial ore-carrier on the Great Lakes, the 1,013-foot Paul R. Tregurtha was the last of the vessels due into lower Green Bay on Friday night [January 18].

“Iron ore continues to run, however, through the northern reaches bay of Green Bay as the port of Escanaba remains active with several ships hauling cargoes to plants along the shores of southern Lake Michigan at Gary and Indiana Harbor, Ind.,” he said.

Read the full story at the Cheboygan Daily Tribune >>

By Tom Stundza | Source: Purchasing.com

ArcelorMittal will build a $380 million steel beam mill in Contrecoeur, Quebec, that could begin production as early as 2010. Beams are not produced in Canada so the plant probably will reduce imports from the U.S. Imports of beams into Canada from the U.S. were approximately 535,000 tons for the 12 months ending July 2007, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

In a related matter, ArcelorMittal also will restructure its steel production activities in Canada. Flat-rolled carbon steel production will be consolidated at the renamed ArcelorMittal Dofasco plant in Hamilton, Ontario, while long-product production will be centered at Contrecoeur. With this restructuring, the Contrecoeur site will end sheet-steel production by closing its hot-rolling mill on January 31 and its cold-rolling mill on February 29.

Read the full story at Purchasing.com >>

See Also:

• Fighting Great Lakes invaders at sea; Ships must flush tanks with saltwater - Detroit Free Press (great photos!)
• Are invaders riding on ships’ hulls? - Grand Rapids Press

By ELLYN FERGUSON | Source: Green Bay Press-Gazette

To curtail the influx of invasive species into the Great Lakes, the federal government wants oceangoing ships using the St. Lawrence Seaway to flush even empty ballast tanks with saltwater to kill stowaway organisms.

The tank cleanout would have to take place 200 nautical miles from any North American shore. U.S. and Canadian ships would not be affected by the rule.

Canada and the United States, which jointly operate the seaway, already require the so-called “swish and spit” practice for oceangoing ships with full ballast tanks.

More than 180 invasive aquatic species live in the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Regional Collaboration estimates non-native species such as zebra mussels, sea lamprey, round goby and others cost the region $5 billion a year in lost tourism and lower commercial fishing revenue.

A June 2007 study found that the organisms picked up at freshwater European ports where ships took on ballast managed to live in ballast tanks even after the water was discharged.

Read the full story at the Green Bay Press-Gazette >>

See Also: Soo Locks closure ends official shipping season - The Times Herald (great photo of the legendary Frank Frisk!)

Source: WOODTV.COM

SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich. — The Soo Locks have closed for the season.

The 1,004-foot freighter Edwin H. Gott cleared the upbound locks at 8:40 p.m. Tuesday and the 698-foot Michipicoten cleared the downbound locks at 10:59 p.m. The locks connect lakes Superior and Huron and will reopen March 25.

Total cargo carrier tonnage amounts were down compared to last year. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which operates and maintains the locks, said tonnage was down largely because of lower water levels.

Iron ore is the cargo carried through the locks most frequently.

The Army Corps says nearly 400,000 people visited the locks in 2007.

Posted by Robert C. Burns | Source: The Muskegon Chronicle

The World War II Navy submarine USS Silversides has become a familiar sight along the Muskegon Channel since its arrival from Chicago’s Navy Pier two decades ago.

But there’s a great deal more to the Great Lakes Naval Memorial and Museum — an outfit whose Navy and World War II-era artifacts number in the thousands, many of which have been stashed away in storage areas for lack of space to display them.

That is a situation the museum’s board of directors is well on its way to correcting. A new $2 million channel-side museum is scheduled for opening in mid-June, rounding out a visitor destination center that is expected to attract more than 50,000 visitors annually.

It includes the highly popular Silversides, now a National Historic Landmark, as well as the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter McLane. Built in 1927 as a Prohibition-era “rum chaser,” it later saw service in World War II and came to Muskegon in 1993.

Read the full story at the Muskegon Chronicle >>

See Also: State allocates $6 million to fight invasive species - The Daily Telegram

Source: Business North

[State Senator Bob Jauch (D.Poplar) [sic] ] said that the Governor’s initiative would make up to $6 million available to create demonstration projects at Wisconsin ports to remove ballast water and treat it at onshore facilities before returning the treated water to the bay. “It is indisputable that this ballast water is poisoning our natural resources and we can no longer wait for the industry or the Federal Government to take action,” Jauch said.

Read the full story at Business North >>

By Charlie Mathews | Source: Green Bay Press-Gazette

MANITOWOC — It made for quite a sight in June, watching the 640-foot Saginaw off-load Canadian barley into the Anheuser-Busch tower on the Manitowoc River.

Built by Manitowoc Shipbuilding a half-century ago, the vessel will return this spring to resume delivery of a crucial component of beer, along with yeast, hops and water.

Dave Luckow, local Busch Agricultural Resources Inc. (BARI) plant manager, said recently the Saginaw and its sister ship, Michipicoten, delivered 4.2 million bushels of barley in 2007 in seven visits to Manitowoc.

“Our total delivery is about 11.5 million bushels per year, so we continue to use both rail and boat,” Luckow said.

Luckow said Anheuser-Busch made a major investment in 2007 to install new conveying equipment, as well as electronically controlled feeders, to address the flow of the grain from the Saginaw and Michipicoten.

Read the full story at the Green Bay Press-Gazette >>

By KRISTEN CHARRON | Source: The London Free Press

SARNIA — Sarnia Harbour has become a busy place during recent days, with 11 Great Lakes ships tied up for winter repairs.

The largest project is the steamship Saginaw. Work on the 650-foot vessel is more extensive than last winter’s overhaul of the Tobermory ferry the MS Chi-Cheemaun, said Marten VandenBroek, president of Shelley Machine and Marine.

The ship’s steam power is being replaced with a diesel engine.

Many vessel updates and full story at The London Free Press >>

Source: Erie Shipping News

Both of the Great Lakes Fleet vessels due to winter in Erie, the CASON J. CALLAWAY and PRESQUE ISLE, should be arriving on January 17. The PRESQUE ISLE will spend the winter secured at the Mountfort Terminal, while the CALLAWAY will be at the Old Ore Dock.

The CALLAWAY is due for her five-year survey this winter; however it is possible that Great Lakes Fleet, the vessel’s owners, will seek an extension of her drydocking survey until next winter, as the PHILIP R. CLARKE, which spent the winter in Erie last year and also received the extension, will be spending the winter at Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin for drydocking.