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Source: Lake Carriers Association

With higher water levels allowing Great Lakes freighters to carry bigger cargoes, the iron ore trade on the Great Lakes totaled 6.8 million net tons in August, an increase of 8.6 percent compared to a year ago.

The increase in water levels did allow one U.S.-Flag Laker to twice carry more than 68,000 tons in a single trip. However, if dredging of the Great Lakes Navigation System was sufficient to allow for a full load, the 1,000-foot-long vessel would have carried more than 71,000 tons each trip.

For the year, the Great Lakes iron ore trade stands at 39 million tons, an increase of 10 percent compared to a year ago. Shipments also are ahead of the 5-year average for the January-August timeframe by a like margin.

Brian Mulherin | Source: Ludington Daily News

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers didn’t waste any time ordering a survey of Ludington’s harbor after a 630-foot freighter was stuck for 40 minutes or more Saturday.

The ship, which reported a draft of 24.3 feet to Coast Guard Station Ludington, became lodged on bottom as it entered the harbor from the west-northwest.

… Ludington’s harbor is dredged once every three years and normally down to 30 feet, but last year the dredging only went to 28 feet due to federal budget constraints.

… Wednesday’s survey revealed the shoal is a little larger and a little higher off bottom, with depths as shallow as 22.5 feet recorded in an area that spans 150 feet from west to east.

How the survey was done, previous observations and more at the Ludington Daily News >>

Source: Lake Carriers Association

Shipments of limestone on the Great Lakes totaled 4.4 million net tons in August. While the total represents an increase of 12 per cent compared to a year ago, shipments in August of 2007 were sluggish, said the Lake Carriers’ Association.

“The five-year average is the better barometer,” said the Association, “and in that regard, this August was off the pace by nearly 100,000 tons.”

Although water levels have risen, the dredging crisis continued to limit the amount of stone vessels could deliver to customers. Read the rest of this entry »

by Jeff Kart | Source: Bay City Times

Dredging of the Upper Saginaw River is set to begin later this month, now that a contract has been awarded for the work.

The river’s navigational channel will be cleared for the first time in more than a decade, said Wayne Schloop, chief of operations for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Detroit.

Ships have had to lighten their loads for years on the river, driving up costs and threatening about 200 jobs associated with shipping.

“We did an emergency portion back in 2006, but we haven’t really done any type of comprehensive dredging since the mid-90s on the river,” Schloop said.

…The contract has been awarded to low-bidder Luedtke Engineering Co. of Frankfort for $1.9 million. The company plans to begin the dredging by the end of the month and finish it this fall, Schloop said.

Much more to the story at the Bay City Times >>

By BOB MIHELL | Source: Sault This Week

“A shoreline greening project is also underway at Essar Steel Algoma, with hydro seeding and tree planting in progress along the entire shoreline, commencing at the eastern perimeter in back of the Administration Building and planned to extend all the way to the western perimeter of the property. Apart from the obvious aesthetic value of a greening initiative, the plantings will help improve air quality.

In addition, a very large berm is under construction, with the first phase nearing completion. Beginning at the western corner of the boat slip, spanning approximately 200-feet wide at the bottom, standing about 50 feet high and extending 300 feet long, the berm is designed to prevent trace dust particles from the coal piles from migrating off the property.

“To address the potential for coal pile run off, a collection trench is maintained to keep the water from entering the slip. The Company has also commenced a dust suppression program on the coal piles and surrounding roadways to reduce the amount of particulate released into the air.”

Since the Indian multinational, Essar Global, assumed ownership of the Canadian steelmaker in June 2006, it has come under intense public and government scrutiny as a result of Essar’s plans to double steel production within five years.

Stenta described a dredging project currently underway with MOE approval at Saw Mill Point in preparation for new dock facilities to allow Essar Algoma to substantially increase freighter traffic bringing additional raw materials, such as coal and iron ore, to the plant.

Stenta wrote: “Essar Steel Algoma has taken steps through our dredging contractor, Purvis Marine, to put a silt curtain in place to ensure any sediment that may be disturbed will not be carried downstream. In addition, Purvis Marine has acquired new, state of the art dredging equipment that provides for less sediment disturbance and features GPS devices on the hoist allowing for very accurate, targeted dredging.

Read the full, detailed story about many influences on St Marys River water quality at Sault This Week >>

By Nathan McDonald | Source: The Palladium-Times

Sediment deposits that have accumulated along the bottom of Lake Ontario since it was last dredged in 2004 will be removed beginning Monday.

New York state Sen. Chuck Schumer announced Friday that the Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE) will start the dredging process at the Port of Oswego Authority to remove the excess sediment which has dangerously constricted access to waterways used by ships to deliver cargo.

…The port of Oswego is the only deep-water port on the U.S. side of Lake Ontario and maintaining correct channel depths is critical to its continued operations as such.

Read the full story at the Palladium-Times >>

By FRANK DOBROVNIK | Source: The Sault Star

Essar Steel Algoma is a beehive of activity these days as it prepares to nearly double steel-making capacity by the end of next year, including building a new dock-face to accommodate hundreds more vessels.

“It’s very tight. There’s not a lot of capacity left,” said chief operating officer Armando Plastino.

With the No. 6 blast furnace now up and running alongside No. 7, Essar aims to be able to ship out four million tons of finished coil and slab by the end of 2009. That means bringing in that much more raw material.

…Algoma has just under 500 boats coming in and out over a typical shipping season. Plastino expects that to increase to about 700, with little room for snags, he said.

“You’ve got to get all your raw materials here by Dec. 15, and the locks don’t reopen until the end of March. You’ve got to have enough raw materials to last you through the winter.”

Very interesting story, more quotes and specifics, photo at the Sault Star >>

by Carol Martin | Source: SooToday.com

Essar Steel Algoma Inc. has been dredging this month at Saw Mill Point on the upper St. Marys River.

The company is building a new deep water dock at that location because there’s currently insufficient draft at the Essar slip for most lake freighters to carry to capacity.

…”The dredging contractor, Purvis Marine, has acquired new, state-of-the-art dredging equipment that provides for less sediment disturbance and features global positioning system (GPS) devices on the hoist. allowing for very accurate, targeted dredging,” says Stenta.

…They are disposing of the dredged material in an approved landfill located on Essar property.

Essar Steel Algoma asked to dredge 89,000 cubic metres of sediment from its slip on the upper St. Marys River because of dropping water levels, rising shipping and receiving demands and expected production increases, Aasen said.

Read the full story, more about the St. Marys River at SooToday.com >>

Source: Dredging News Online

The Lake Carriers’ Association in the US says shipments of limestone on the Great Lakes totaled 4.2 million net tons in July, a decrease of 4.8 per cent compared to a year ago, and a drop of nearly 9 per cent compared to the month’s five-year average.

“Although water levels are rising, not all ports are benefiting to the same degree,” said the Association. Read the rest of this entry »

By Tony Walter | Source: Green Bay Press Gazette

Port and harbor officials want federal lawmakers to help make water transport more attractive to companies by exempting some vessels from a harbor maintenance tax.

The American Great Lakes Ports Association, meeting Tuesday in Green Bay, added its support to federal legislation that would maintain the tax for bulk haulers but eliminate it for shorter hauls throughout the Great Lakes.

Green Bay Port Director Dean Haen said there have been conversations with major companies in Northeastern Wisconsin such as Georgia-Pacific, Oshkosh Truck, Marinette Marine, Kimberly-Clark and Mercury Marine, about shipping goods on the lakes. The high price of fuel and the crowded highways have led company officials to seek less-expensive ways to move goods.

“The tax exemption would allow free movement” on the lakes, Haen said. “It would take traffic off the roads and rails.”

The tax now costs haulers 12.5 cents per $100 of value for goods shipped on the Great Lakes, making shipping in the region a deterrent for many companies. It was established in 1986 and collects an estimated $22 billion annually, mostly from foreign shippers.

…The tax has been the major source of revenue to pay for the dredging of Great Lakes harbors, a necessity to maintain the health of businesses that depend on Great Lakes shipping. The exemption would only apply to smaller carriers, which provide a small contribution to that revenue.

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

Source: Lake Carriers’ Association

Shipments of limestone on the Great Lakes totaled 4.2 million net tons in July, a decrease of 4.8 percent compared to a year ago, and a drop of nearly 9 percent compared to the month’s 5-year average.

Although water levels are rising, not all ports are benefitting to the same degree. For example, a large integrated tug/barge unit was able to deliver 34,442 tons of stone to a customer at the southern end of Lake Michigan, yet when destined for Lake Superior docks, its cargos fell to 30,411 tons and 30,144 tons. The water level on Lake Superior has been rising quickly, but lack of dredging still forced the vessel to lightload by 4,000 tons or more.

For the year, the Lakes limestone trade stands at 16 million tons, a decrease of 4.4 percent compared to the same point in 2007. Shipments are more than 10 percent behind the 5-year average for the January-July timeframe.

Source: Lake Carriers Association

The U.S.-Flag Great Lakes fleet moved 12 million net tons of cargo on the Great Lakes in July, a virtual tie with a year ago. The July float also was roughly 170,000 tons above the month’s 5-year average.

Rising water levels again boosted vessels’ payloads, but nothing can restore the tonnage that has been lost to the dredging crisis this year.

For example, a 1,000-foot-long U.S.-Flag Laker saw its top cargo climb to 67,474 tons of iron ore in July. However, had the vessel been able to carry this much cargo on each trip this year, its year-to-date total would be 1,416,000 tons instead of 1,331,000 tons. The dredging crisis has cost just this one vessel 85,000 tons of iron ore.

Furthermore, that 67,474-ton cargo still does not represent the vessel’s maximum carrying capacity. The vessel is designed to carry more than 71,000 tons per trip. An adequately dredged navigation system would have allowed the vessel to deliver nearly 1.5 million tons through July.

The same is true in the coal trade. Another 1,000-foot-long vessel was able to carry 65,443 tons in a single trip at month’s end. If that was how much the ship had loaded on each of its 26 trips this year, it would have delivered 1.7 million tons of low-sulfur coal to utilities in the U.S. and Canada. Instead, the vessel has moved 1,625,000 tons through July. And again, even that 65,443-ton cargo is roughly 4,000 tons below the vessel’s rated capacity.

For the year, U.S.-Flag carriage stands at 51.1 million tons, a slight decrease from both a year ago and the 5-year average for the January-July timeframe.

Source: Dowagiac News

Standing on Dock 63, U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph, hailed the return of commercial activity to St. Joseph-Benton Harbor Inner Harbor as the first commercial freighter docked Aug. 8.

Upton in late March called on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to designate the harbor for emergency dredging after severe shoaling clogged the harbor and made it impassable for commercial traffic.

Upton’s emergency designation cleared the way for $1.8 million in federal funds to reopen the vital waterway for Great Lakes shipping.

… The freighter Sam Laud delivered the first commercial shipment of the season at 8:30 a.m. Friday - 12,800 tons of limestone for construction of the I-94/U.S. 131 interchange in Kalamazoo County.

Quotes, more about dredging and port operations at the Dowagiac News >>

Sharon Hill | Source: The Windsor Star

Lakes St. Clair, Huron and Superior are at their highest levels in the last four years.

“They’re all up,” Ralph Moulton, manager of the water level information office at Environment Canada, said Tuesday.

Lake Superior, which affects the levels of the other Great Lakes and had dropped to record lows a year ago, is 41 cm higher than it was last year at this time, Moulton said.

Lake Huron is 23 cm higher and Lake Ontario is 31 cm higher than a year ago.

… David Cree, president of the Windsor Port Authority, said he’s hoping lake levels will keep rising.

“The higher water levels this year are good news for everybody in the industry,” Cree said. “If the trend of the last four to five years had continued … it would have been a real issue this year and next year. We’re hoping now that’s bottomed out and we’re on an upward trend in lake levels.”

The same amount of cargo goes through the Windsor port but during times of low lake levels it takes more ships to move goods on the lakes because the ships have to carry less.

Read the full story, with more stats & quotes at the Windsor Star >>

Source: Dredging News Online

MLive.com reports that a project to dredge the navigation channel in the Saginaw River from Bay City south to Saginaw is on track to begin in late August, acording to the Saginaw County public works commissioner.

The US Army Corps of Engineers plans to bid out the work soon, and award a contract by August 20th, said Lynn Duerod, a Corps spokeswoman in Detroit.

The same report said the Corps also is lining up US$3.8 million worth of dredging money for 2009, to clear out a backlog of silt in the lower river, Bay City to the mouth, and in Saginaw Bay. The US$3.8 million was included in an Energy and Water Appropriations bill that cleared a US Senate committee on July 11th.

Read the full story at Dredging News >>

Source: Lake Carriers’ Association

Shipments of limestone on the Great Lakes from US and Canadian ports totalled 4.4 million net tons in June, a small increase - of just 11,558 tons, which represents one load of cargo in a 600ft long vessel.

The Lake Carriers’ Association said the dredging crisis in the Great Lakes continued to have an impact on the trade.

A large tug/barge unit that has carried more than 35,000 tons of limestone in a trip twice saw its load fall below 30,000 tons in June. The vessel’s top load in June was only 34,036 tons.

For the year, the Lakes limestone trade stands at 11.8 million net tons, a decrease of 4.2 per cent compared to the same point in 2007.

Shipments are more than 10 per cent behind the five-year average for the first half of the year.

Source: Lake Carriers’ Assn.

Iron ore shipments on the Great Lakes remained strong in June. Loadings totaled 6.4 million net tons, an increase of 2.6 percent compared to both a year ago and the month’s 5-year average.

The trade was down from May’s total of 7.3 million tons, but that month was a period of stockpile replenishment as well as meeting current production demands.

Although there has been some recovery in water levels, the dredging crisis remained a millstone around Great Lakes shipping’s neck in June. Only three iron ore cargos topped 65,000 tons during the month, so even the best cargos represented only 91 percent of vessels’ rated carrying capacity. The worst case was when a vessel left the loading dock only 81 percent full because the receiving port is so in need of dredging.

For the year, the Lakes iron ore trade stands at 25 million tons, an increase of 9 percent compared to a year ago. Shipments are 8 percent ahead of the 5-year average for the first half of the year.

Lake Carriers’ Association represents 16 American corporations that operate 63 U.S.-Flag vessels on the Great Lakes. These vessels carry the raw materials that drive the nation’s economy: Iron ore and fluxstone for the steel industry, limestone and cement for the construction industry, coal for power generation…. Collectively, these vessels can transport more than 115 million tons of cargo a year when high water levels offset the lack of adequate dredging of Great Lakes ports and waterways. More information is available at www.lcaships.com

Alison Dietz | Source: Chronicle-Telegram

Harbors in Lorain and other nearby lake cities will be dredged over the next few months.

The Lorain Harbor disposal facility, built in 1977, covers 58 acres and has been filled to its capacity of 1,850,000 cubic yards of dredged material. The city and Army Corps of Engineers added an extra wall of earth to hold in this season’s haul. “It is a stopgap until we develop another site for dredge material in the future,” said Novak.

Once a new site is found, the current facility will be converted into a mixed-use area with open space as well as waterfront retail, commercial buildings, and residences.

This year’s dredging is expected to be completed in mid-August.

Full story at the Chronicle-Telegram >>

by Robert C. Burns | The Musekgon Chronicle

Muskegon is a deep-water port again, following a spring dredging operation that returned the outer harbor to safe depths of up to 30 feet.

The King Co. of Holland restored those depths under a dredging schedule expedited by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers after four lake freighters were halted during the last shipping season.

However, the Corps of Engineers says the dredging contractor missed one small area south of the centerline approach between Muskegon’s outer pierheads. In that area, recent surveys indicated a depth as shallow as 26.2 feet.

That discovery prompted the Corps to send out a notice to shippers similar to one issued last August, which warned shippers of “shoaling,” the presence of a sandbar, outside Muskegon’s harbor entrance.

Read the full story at the Muskegon Chronicle >>

by Robert C. Burns | Source: Muskegon Chronicle

Muskegon is a deep-water port again following a now-completed spring dredging operation that returned the outer harbor to safe depths of up to 30 feet.

The King Co. of Holland restored those depths under dredging schedule expedited the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers after four lake freighters were halted during the last shipping season.

However, under a notice to navigation interests sent out last week by the Detroit office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the contractor missed one small area south of the centerline approach between Muskegon’s outer pierheads.

…In the area the contractor missed an area the Corps refers to as the “south flare,” the shallowest depth is listed as 26.2 feet, but isn’t considered critical, given its location.

“Dredging is an inexact science,” said Wayne Schloop, chief of operations for the Corps’ Detroit office. “We wouldn’t make the contractor come back to try to clear that type of small shoal, which is minor and would have little impact on navigation.”

More quotes, details at the Muskegon Chronicle >>