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New Soo lock: Stimulus or slop?

In Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, the shipping industry is parading an old proposal for a new lock, to the tune of $490 million dollars. The rationale? The current lock might break.

With this logic we’d be building backup highways just in case there’s a pothole on the first.

Right now there are two locks at Sault Ste Marie. Collectively called the “Soo locks”, they are the Poe Lock, which handles the 1000 foot lakers that move goods like coal and iron around the region, and the MacArthur Lock, which is smaller and used only by salties. Together, they handle approximately 80 million tons of cargo every year, well within their maximum capacity. Both are fully operational, and with proper care and maintenance they will serve the shipping industry well for decades to come.

Construction funding for a third commercial lock was authorized by Congress in 1986. Envisioned as a backup to the Poe Lock, it was to be built in the footprint of two outdated and non-operational locks. Proponents of this project argue that the redundancy is needed in case of lock failure or a terrorist attack.

After the original authorization, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers studied the project but the federal government never coughed up funding for the lock. Like many old authorized projects, it was left to collect dust on a backshelf, where it was easily forgotten about. That is, until the winds of economic stimulus started blowing.

In January, with the tremendous flurry around what projects could make it into the national stimulus bill, proponents drew attention to the project as being ready to start construction.

However, while the project may be ready for construction, it is by no means worthy of funding. In a letter co-signed by 17 groups across the region, Great Lakes United outlined its opposition to this wasteful spending.

At the top of the list: shipping traffic doesn’t justify the expenditure. The Corps own traffic projections for cargo moved through the Soo locks into 2050 is modest and can be handled with the existing two commercial locks. The Corps have also stated that the navigation system on the whole is “highly dependable” with a small fraction of downtime associated with lock failures. The Corps has promoted the maintenance of the current infrastructure to ensure that the system remain reliable. In our letter we agreed; repair and maintenance of the current navigation system to ensure worker safety and to maximize efficiency is a higher priority than developing and maintaining redundant pieces of equipment into a system that is already dependable.

Put simply, the groups pointed to the obvious. With such a tremendous need for restoration of the Great Lakes ecosystem for the benefit of all citizens, the building of a half billion dollar lock for one industry just in case there is a problem at the Poe, is wasteful.

We were struck, imagining what pressing modern day needs a half a billion dollars could be used for instead: equip salties with ballast treatment technologies? Run a port monitoring program to detect and eradicate invasive species as soon as they arrive? Help the Great Lakes shipping industry adapt to lower water levels associated with climate change? Ensure the navigation system is well maintained and secure? Compared to all the 2009 needs for navigation system operations, spending so much money on a project conceived over two decades ago but never funded, was mindboggling.

Fortunately, the Corps shocked the shipping industry by denying the extra lock federal stimulus money. But the project is not dead. Just this year in annual appropriations, Congress took a first step and gave the Corps $17 million to construct a set of coffer dams at the lock site, which would enable the immediate area to be dried for future lock construction. Congress could still breathe life into this project by further funding activities at this site in coming years with additional annual appropriations.

Great Lakes United will stay on top of this issue. At the very least, Congressional hearings are needed to determine if the economic justification for this project exists given that it’s not the 1980’s anymore.

SIDEBAR
How did this happen?

The Soo Lock is one of literally thousands of Corps projects that have been authorized by Congress, but have not been constructed.

In fact, the Corps has an estimated $80 billion backlog of authorized-but-not-yet-constructed projects on the books. With a $2 billion per year Corps construction budget, it is likely that many of these projects will never be constructed. However, many still persist as a threat because it is seldom that the conditions for ‘de-authorizing’ a project are met.

Currently, a project must receive no funding for a period of approximately 9 years (including study funding) in order to be automatically de-authorized.

The Corps Reform Network (of which Great Lakes United is a member) is working to change the law so old ‘legacy’ projects like the Soo Lock will be reviewed and de-authorized on a regular basis.

De-authorizing outdated or harmful Corps projects will reduce the Corps’ massive backlog, help the nation prioritize those projects that are in the broadest national interest, and help prevent special interests from breathing new life into old and outdated projects, like they did for the 1986 authorization for an extra lock at the Soo.

For more information contact:
George Sorvalis
Corps Reform Network
gsorvalis@nwf.org

You can learn more baout the Corps Reform Network at:
www.corpsreform.org

© 2009 Great Lakes News.