Executive Transportation Briefing
CQ Roll Call
9 October 2013
Roiling the Inland Waterways.
There was a regional conference earlier this week in Nashville
of various stakeholders along the inland rivers — barge operators
and shippers, levee groups, etc. — and word is some industry
officials there were concerned that as the government shutdown
lengthens, the Corps of Engineers could soon start pulling lock
operators off their jobs. The issue is whether they are "excepted"
workers who stay on the job or whether their service is less than
critical. Until now, the Corps has always considered lockages as
well as river dredging to be essential to safety of navigation
along the river system, and certainly critical to a number of
industries whose cargoes need to move by barge. Corps officials
did not participate in the Nashville conference, as administration
officials are mostly avoiding public events during the shutdown,
and did not respond to queries seeking clarification about their
policies. The agency has already furloughed hundreds of civil
works employees need to oversee Corps-managed parks and recreation
areas along with waterways, but locking so far has continued as
normal.
Head-Scratcher Industry Statement.
That may be why the barge shipping group Waterways Council
issued a peculiar press release Tuesday, in which the trade
association simultaneously praised the Army's top civil works
official and the Corps for keeping locks open, and then spent a
couple of paragraphs highlighting the need to keep doing so. While
the statement cheered Army Assistant Secretary Jo-Ellen Darcy and
the Corps for their "decision to keep the waterways open," we'd
challenge you to find a record of such a decision out of Army or
Corps HQ. The council then argued that keeping locks open is a
critical government function for a wide range of users, including
coal-burning power plants and especially for hauling the autumn
grain crops now starting to move in thousands of barges. "Impacts
to the public ... could be profound should the locks and dams
close," the statement said. "The economic impacts to the nation
could be catastrophic if our ports and waterways are no longer
operating and unable to transport agricultural and other essential
goods to market during this critical harvest period."
Grain Harvests Locking Through.
At the National Grain and Feed Association, President Randy
Gordon noted the traditional treatment of lock workers as
essential Corps employees even in times of appropriations
disruptions. And he said grain barges are so far moving without
disruption. He added: "That, of course, is important given that a
big corn and soybean harvest is well under way, and the use of
barges for transporting grain and grain products will be on the
upswing. As you know, about 60 percent of U.S. grain exports
typically are transported by barge via the Upper Mississippi and
Illinois River system to the [New Orleans] Gulf." Upstream
shipments this time of year are also important, Gordon said.
Before winter closes the northernmost locks, barges are moving
large volumes of fertilizer, road salt and other essential
products to states in the upper Midwest.
The View From AEP.
Another big user of waterways is the utility industry, which
brings in vast volumes of coal by river. Ohio-based American
Electric Power runs at least 60 power plants across 11 states, and
more than half burn coal. While the company maintains a working
supply of coal at all such plants to keep them humming, company
spokeswoman Tammy Ridout told CQ's Nathan Hurst that “any closure
[of locks] would have an impact on our plants.” She also said "the
government has always considered the lock and dam system critical,
and we think it’s essential that they remain open.” Of course, AEP
and other shippers of barge cargoes could instead move those loads
by trains or truck fleets in a river disruption, but it would be
at a much higher expense, require many more shipments to handle
those volumes in smaller cargo vessels, and squeeze businesses’
bottom lines in the short term while hiking consumer prices down
the road.