By A.J. Panian, Leader Times, Kittanning, Pa
Friday, August 8, 2003
URL for article below is http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/leadertimes/s_148720.html
One can only play the hand one is dealt.
That statement sums up the overall stance of United States Army Corps of Engineers Pittsburgh District when explaining their scheduled fiscal year 2004 cuts to service hours at Locks 5 to 9 on the Allegheny River in Armstrong County.
"We are here in today’s world, with today’s dollars and today’s rules for guidelines for requesting money through the executive branch, and we have a responsibility to use money where it can provide the most service for the most customers," said Dick Dowling, public affairs officer for the Pittsburgh District.
"That’s what we’re doing to the best of our abilities with the proposed schedule."
According to Dowling, the rules that an executive branch agency like the Corps operates within to develop a budget have grown increasingly restrictive where the Allegheny River is concerned.
"Every year, we go through the same issue of having to put together our most important budget items and then getting them approved by Congress and the president," said James Rockovich, Pittsburgh District assistant chief of operations, adding that the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers are each funded with their own line-item dollars as separate projects within the district as a whole.
Since 1993, the Federal Office of Management and Budget has given the Pittsburgh District less and less money annually for maintenance needs like those of the Allegheny’s eight locks and dams systems, according to Pittsburgh District Engineer Col. Jim Scrocco.
"As district engineer, I have to decide how to use the money designated in the president’s annual budget (for the Pittsburgh District), and those numbers have been going down year after year," said Scrocco.
Likewise, Scrocco said both commercial and recreational traffic on both the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers has been dwindling.
It’s solely the amount of annual commercial lockages on a river, however, that determines the level of federal funding allocated to the river’s system of locks and dams for maintenance.
Specifically, Rockovich said OMB usage level designations on America’s inland waterways are determined by the amount of ton-miles of commercial commerce recorded annually.
"(To arrive at the amount recorded) on the Allegheny River, you take the amount of commercial tonnage that annually goes through Locks 2-9, then you multiply that by the river’s commercial navigation length of 72 miles," said Rockovich. "When you do that, you come up with 50 million ton-miles."
Sounds like a lot, but Rockovich said OMB will not deem a river "high-usage" and give its lock and dam systems the requisite dollars for maintenance and operations unless it annually records at least one billion ton miles of commercial lockages.
"So you’re about 1/20 of where you need to go (to change the low-usage designation)," said Rockovich.
Scrocco said that while both the Allegheny and Monongahela fit into this category, they are not unique.
"(Thirty-nine) river systems nationwide are under the gun in that they are designated low-usage and must to try to accomplish more with less," said Scrocco. "It’s just that (the Pittsburgh District) has two of them, and we are trying to be as creative and innovative as possible in using the resources we have to maintain service for both while being judicious stewards of where the taxpayers’ money should go." ,P> While Rockovich said the Pittsburgh District keeps unofficial record of annual recreational lockages on the Allegheny, with Lock 2 recording more than any lock in the nation, federal government does not recognize that when considering funding for maintenance.
"Unfortunately, (recreational lockages) are not part of the formula, if you will, to determine tonnage," said Rockovich.
So begins the process of cutting funding within the Pittsburgh District in areas where it’s less needed, and funneling that money to areas where it’s more needed.
The victim of the process is the upper Allegheny.
"(The Allegheny) is a river system where the uppermost locks are just not being used at a level sufficiently high enough to justify the expense of keeping them open, in some cases, 24 hours a day and seven days a week," said Dowling.
"The numbers just aren’t there (at the upper locks) in comparison with other locks in the system, which are also in competition for maintenance dollars and for manpower."
With lock schedule cuts in the Pittsburgh District set to occur on both the upper Allegheny and the upper Monongahela rivers, Dowling said a savings of $3.8 million in taxpayer dollars will result.
"That’s money we can redirect to high priority maintenance elsewhere in the system, and some of the money that, frankly, we just don’t have (to work with otherwise)," said Dowling.
In other words, the money would help take care of the lock and dam systems on the Ohio and lower Monongahela, both rivers that record the requisite $1 billion annual ton-miles to be designated high-usage, according to Dowling.
As for the Allegheny, funding for any and all maintenance is to be used when, and only when, something breaks down.
"The challenge for us is to do what we have to do to redirect money internally to keep the busy locks open, even on a river that, as a whole, is underutilized," said Dowling.
That means Locks 2 to 4 on the lower Allegheny will continued to provide 24 hour a day, seven days a week services year round, despite the fact that all three locks operated under the "breakdown maintenance" funding.
"It’s all based on money, what money there is to operate. That’s the starting point for every discussion (regarding this issue)," said Dowling. "We’re using every bit of latitude that we can use, and then some, to concentrate the hours of service where we know the recreational community wants locking hours, on weekends and holidays."
That means Corps officials have arranged the five days Lock 5 will operate for one shift a day under the 2004 schedule to be Thursday through Monday.
"We also have consistently extended expanded lock hours for special events when the local government has requested it, and we’ll continue to accept those requests so long as we can to act favorably on them," said Dowling. "We are doing everything we can to continue to provide service with a minimum of inconvenience."
But, from a federal level, Dowling said the Allegheny as a whole is deemed low priority on the list of America’s inland waterways, which could mean further funding cuts in the future.
"We’ve had to make due and we have, but the facts are still that the usage on the upper locks on the Allegheny and the Mon by the commercial towing industry and by recreational boaters themselves is the lowest in the Pittsburgh District of any locks, and, comparatively, it’s among the lowest throughout the Army Corps of Engineers system nationwide," said Dowling.
"For all the scenic beauty, for all the great fishing, and for all the wonderful people who take their boats on the river, ourselves included on our days off, we just can’t keep putting taxpayers’ money into keeping that system at the same high levels of service that it has been historically."
And, while the inconvenience of meticulous trip planning and the need to pull boats up river by vehicle may constrain many boaters, Dowling restated the Pittsburgh District is doing all it can.
"Yes, there will be some inconvenience in future years, like a bass boater who may have to wait until Saturday to go through a lock to go fishing. We would hope boaters would look at the national demands on public funding and understand that this savings of nearly $4 million a year coupled with other economies across the Corps are what we, as a nation, need to do," said Dowling.
With the nation as a whole facing tough times, budgetwise, Dowling said there are legitimate and understandable demands for economic attention across the nation, across the federal government and across the Corps.
"But we have committed to communicating with recreational boaters and the navigation industry, we’ve gone out to meetings, we’ve promised no surprises, and we’ve been upfront with the communities involved and their elected representatives about what the impacts are of budget decisions and what we are recommending here and the way we have to proceed in future years."
In response to those worried about the lock schedule cuts signaling a complete shutdown of county locks in the future, Dowling said to rest easy.
"It is not a simple thing to just close down a lock," said Dowling. "That would require an outlay in studies, first the governmental studies, economic studies, it would require planning and decisions on how to protect equipment or put equipment into some sort of maintenance status, all told that would be a major undertaking.
"We’re focusing on doing all we can to keep the system functioning and available for boaters, even if they have to reschedule a trip. To us, it’s important to keep providing services for the good of society as a whole and for the good of the communities (in Armstrong County)."
A.J. Panian can be reached at leadertimes@tribweb.com or (724) 543-1303, ext. 241.