Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=597215
Editorial: Close seaway? Not yet
Closing the St. Lawrence Seaway is not the best option right now — but it may be sometime soon.
From the Journal Sentinel
Posted: April 29, 2007
There may come a day when the St. Lawrence Seaway should be closed to oceangoing vessels, but that day is not today. Still, that day could come soon if Congress and the shipping industry don't act fast enough to curb the damage that oceangoing vessels are doing to the Great Lakes.
Congress must enact stricter controls and set federal standards for how ballast water is handled by oceangoing ships. And a concerted effort must be made to find technology that would keep such ships from continuing to bring in invasive species, such as zebra mussels, that have done so much serious damage to the Great Lakes since the seaway was opened in 1959.
But those pushing to close the seaway - the conservation group Great Lakes United called for an overseas-freighter ban in late March - forget that the seaway provides economic benefits.
While oceangoing traffic accounts for only about 7% of all Great Lakes shipping, that percentage is higher for some ports and carries an economic impact beyond the small number. Port of Milwaukee Director Eric Reinelt said the annual percentage for Milwaukee is usually around 11% and has been as high as about 20%. In 2006, the port handled more than 710,000 metric tons of imports and exports through the seaway, up 99% from 2005.
In addition, he says, oceangoing ships provide the best and cheapest way to deliver such freight as steel and wind turbines used in power generation, as well as to move grain from farmers in southeastern Wisconsin to foreign ports.
The local economy would take a hit if the seaway were to be closed, and Milwaukee is hardly the only port that would be hurt. Detroit and ports in Ohio would take even bigger hits, Reinelt said.
Still, the threat of invasive species remains severe, a fact that Reinelt and many of those in the shipping industry recognize. New technology is needed, but so is stricter regulation by Congress and enforcement by the Coast Guard. If Congress continues to fail to act, there may be no reasonable alternative to closing the seaway.
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Distributed without profit to those who have expressed an interest in receiving aquatic invasive species information for research and educational purposes.
