Editorial - The Waterways Journal
18 December 2006
Last week we reported the death of the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) as it relates to 2006 and the 109th Congress. As a result of congressional changes to come, some have concluded that there may never again be a WRDA as we have known it. Obviously rivers still flow and barge transportation will continue. Nevertheless, the potential for serious problems grows as we continue to ignore good maintenance and modernization.
While water transportation opponents would tend to categorize that warning as crying wolf, the nation has been exposed to billions of dollars in losses resulting from transportation delays and the not-so-rare failure of navigation structures. It is unfortunate when structure failures and closures occur because of accidents, but considering the conditions under which the towing industry performs, it is understandable. It should not, however, be acceptable for a nation to expose itself to potential structure failures and financial losses that surely will occur as the outdated system ages. Many structures are well beyond their design life and failures are becoming more prevalent.
On December 7, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review featured a story focusing on the advanced state of deterioration of waterway facilities. The emphasis was upon Emsworth Darn, Mile 6.2 on the Ohio River at Pittsburgh. The crumbling dam gives plenty of cause for worry.
Writer Rick Wills quotes a Corps of Engineers' report as saying, "there is a 74 percent chance that one of its 13 gates will fail." The Corps recently rated Emsworth and two other Pennsylvania facilities — Dashields Locks and Dam in Edgeworth and Montgomery Locks and Dam in Industry — the worst of the 19 Ohio River locks and clams.
The Corps is now spending $83 million to rebuild 12 of the 13 failing gates just to keep the Emsworth facility operational, Wills wrote. The government is now considering replacement of three Ohio River dams that are between 70 and 84 years old. Emsworth, for instance, was first built in 1921 and was rebuilt in 1935, making it 71 years old.
"What's a little gate failure here or there?" you might ask. The answer is big trouble and huge financial losses.
At Emsworth, the biggest threat is erosion, or scour, which as can threaten the stability of the pilings and piers that hold the dam in place. If the stability of the dam is undermined and the pool is lost, the lowering of the water in downtown Pittsburgh would cut off such companies as Campbell Transportation Inc. of Charleroi, which owns 450 barges and moves 10 million tons of cargo (mostly coal) out of Pittsburgh annually. Failure to control the water level could jeopardize Pittsburgh's river economy and the 50 million tons of cargo that moves through the port each year. A gate failure could result in the same.
"What's at stake," writes Wills, "are the 45,000 jobs and $3.2 billion in local, state and federal tax revenue the area's waterways generate directly, according to the Port of Pittsburgh." It would have a ripple effect through much of the nation. Some 15 percent of the nation's steel manufacturers get their coke from U.S. Steel's Clairton Coke Works. Jim McCarville, executive director of the Port of Pittsburgh, told the Tribune-Review that the alternative to water transportation is "unthinkable." To compensate for barge-shipped coke would require that 75 trucks leave Clanton every hour, 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
The Tribune-Review story goes on to discuss other waterways facility problems and how long it takes to solve them. The Corps is conducting a $15 million study over the next three years to assess whether to upgrade Emsworth, Dashields and Montgomery facilities or replace them. Completion could take decades and cost upwards of $1 billion.
There are similar horror stories around the waterways system. The tired old facilities have seen their best days and are continuing to deteriorate. If highway systems were allowed to fall into such disrepair, we would consider it a travesty.
Failure to pass the WRDA is not the end of the world. "Ole Man River just keeps rolling along." But the vessels upon it will not move as efficiently as they should, and the entire nation will ultimately feel the negative impact.
What is crucial — no doubt the fierce battle will continue is to not allow waterway opponents to revamp the methods used by the Corps to evaluate waterway projects. If this happens, the plight of waterways transportation, a vital national asset, will further deteriorate.