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Control exotics before opening up lakes shipping
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
It's called "Highway H2O," or "HWY H20" in governmentese, but the exotic species traveling the direct route to the Great Lakes won't be paying the freight.
Those costs will be borne directly by the residents of this region, which surrounds the world's largest freshwater resources, These have been under assault for decades by the pests, diseases and imports from alien ecosystems -- an assault that will only intensify if the government's plans to bring more ocean freighters and container ships onto the lakes comes to fruition.
The HWY H2O project in question would more than double the current volume of shipping.
Ship-watching is great fun, as our readers have let us know in their overwhelmingly positive response to our new feature "In Port." Yet there is a downside to Great Lakes waterborne traffic and that's what hitchhikes in on it. That's the ill that has to be cured before the step of expanding the volume of shipping is taken.
Currently, waterborne cargo operations on the Great Lakes is subject to the size of the locks that control entry via the St. Lawrence Seaway. Most ocean-going container ships are too large to pass through these as things now stand. That could all change as the HWY H2O "bypass the locks" plan is implemented.
Under that plan, the larger ships too big to pass through the locks would unload their freight at destination ports in Montreal and Halifax, Nova Scotia, in Canada, and in Newark, N.J. Smaller "feeder" vessels would then carry the cargo to their destinations in the Midwest via the Great Lakes.
While this is a far better plan than the one we've heard to enlarge the locks that are the gateway to the Great Lakes, the source of the problems haunting our waterways are still not being dealt with. As lakes shipping traffic increases so do the chances for increased contamination.
The invaders that have thus far made it into the ecosystem have wreaked havoc in our waters. The problem caused by zebra mussels also has already cost municipal water systems and their users hundreds of millions of dollars.
On the other hand, there's no denying the lure of increased shipping holds much promise for Michigan. Our regional shipping economy is estimated to employ many workers both directly and indirectly, and is a $3 billion annual concern. Shutting the doors to cargo shipping on the Great Lakes makes absolutely no sense at all from a jobs and employment perspective.
But expansion has to be accomplished the smart way. That means solving the issue of toxic contaminants being introduced into our waterways, and eliminating once and for all any chance of exotic new species being introduced into the ecosystem. Certainly, this means greatly added costs up front for the shippers, but the end result will be a good one for everybody.
