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Great Lakes becoming an economic juggernaut?

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Last lockage of the 2021 season — the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers tug Owen M. Frederick followed by the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Biscayne Bay and the 635' Sam Laud.

By Dale DuPont, Correspondent

The need for an additional lock the size of the Poe Lock, at Sault St. Marie, Mich., was rst cited by a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers report in 1986 and authorized in the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA). One of the two parallel locks enabling ships to travel between Lake Superior and the Lower Great Lakes, the “lynch pin of the Great Lakes Navigation System” has no backup. An aging and deteriorating infrastructure means unscheduled outages are increasing.

A 2015 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report put a hefty price tag on downtime. “It is hard to conceive of a single asset more consequential” to the North American economy than the Poe, DHS said. A six-month closure could reduce gross domestic product by $1.1 trillion and mean the loss of 11 million jobs.

The parallel MacArthur Lock is smaller than the Poe in all dimensions.

Those messages and others’ pleas nally got through. Tucked into the recent bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was a chunk of federal money to nish a new Poe-sized lock, the third of three phases of a $1.4 billion project to modernize the Soo Locks.

PHASED IN

Phase I, upstream dredging of a channel for the new lock, was begun in the spring of 2020 and due to be nished this summer. Phase II consists of the upstream approach walls started last spring and expected to be done in 2023. The design of Phase III, which includes a hands-free mooring (HFM) system, is complete, and contracts are expected to be awarded before June 21.

The goal is to open the new lock no later than 2030, a Corps spokesman said. Work depends on the weather and possible need for more money, especially considering in ation. Nevertheless, the funding was a milestone worth celebrating.

“It’s fantastic news for the entire seaway, the Great Lakes and everyone who uses it,” said Joe Starck, president, Great Lakes Towing Co., Cleveland, which has two tugs at the locks. The biggest issue is maintenance and repair. “If we lose that lock, it would doom the system. You don’t want to be building a new lock under duress. It’s a miracle that it’s actually happening.”

For Mark Barker, president of Interlake Steamship Co., Middleburg Heights, Ohio, the largest privately held U.S.- ag eet on the Great Lakes, “It gives us the security that we’re going to get a redundant lock. We’re excited we have the funding commitment.”

Interlake has nine vessels that carry bulk cargoes and in June expects to christen what is believed to be the rst ship for U.S. Great Lakes service built on the lakes since 1983. Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding, Sturgeon Bay, Wis., launched that ship — the 639'x78'x45', 28,000-dwt bulk carrier Mark W. Barker in October.

Users praise the engineers for keeping the locks working.

The funding is “not just critical for the carriers, it’s more critical for our customers,” said James Weakley, president of the Lake Carriers’ Association, which represents the U.S.- ag Great Lakes eet. “Politically, it’s huge to have a signi cant amount of funding,” so contracts don’t have to be rebid every year, which could save millions. “It’s more likely to keep the project on track.

“The Corps’s done a really good job of designing it. I’m optimistic the Corps will bring it in on time and on budget,” Weakley said.

HANDS-FREE MOORING

The new lock has a lot of redundancy with the Poe, which allows for interchangeable components and helps with operation and maintenance, said Rachel Miller, the project’s supervisory civil engineer.

One of the construction issues is that the new lock is being built on the site of locks built a century ago. “There’s some very old material in there, and we have to remove components of the existing locks,” she said. “It’s a challenge.”

One new feature will be a hands-free mooring (HFM) system that uses suction pads instead of lines to hold vessels locking through. HFM has been in operation on 13 St. Lawrence Seaway locks for several years. Mounted on vertical rails inside the lock chamber, the pads provide up to 20 tons of holding force.

The seaway project was the rst use of the technology on an inland waterway, according to an announcement by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s St.

THE ONLY PASSAGE BETWEEN LAKE SUPERIOR AND OTHER GREAT LAKES

The Soo Locks system, a National Historic Landmark on the St. Mary’s River at Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., is the only water passage between Lake Superior and the other Great Lakes.

• Two operating locks are the current 1,200’x110’ Poe Lock, opened in 1969 — the only one that can handle the lakes’ largest vessels and the 800’x80’

MacArthur Lock, opened in 1943. A new Poe-size lock will be on the site of two locks no longer used commercially : the Davis, built in 1914, and

Sabin, built in 1919.

• The Poe handles 91.7% of all Soo tonnage. Cargo includes iron ore, which accounts for nearly two-thirds of the total and is critical to steel mills on the lower lakes, as well as coal, grain and aggregates.

• In 2021, 8,265 vessels with 72 million tons of cargo locked through compared to 5,982 with 60 million tons in Covid-impacted 2020.

• Water level in Lake Superior is 21’ higher than Lake Huron.

Source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

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PASSENGER VESSEL NUMBERS EXPECTED TO BALLOON

Four years ago, Port Milwaukee had just over 1,100 cruise passengers and in 2019 about 3,300. Then Covid intervened and shut down cruising — temporarily. This year port offi cials expect 10,000 passengers with 27 cruise ship visits — a testament to the growth of the Great Lakes as a destination for overnight cruises especially on smaller ships.

“We refer to it as the familiar unfamiliar,” said port director Adam Tindall-Schlicht. “Cruise passengers have the ability to stay close to home and explore the sheer enormity of the Great Lakes.”

The port recently received a $3.5 million state grant to expand its infrastructure to handle larger ships, since Milwaukee is a turnaround point for several lines. TindallSchlicht called the grant a signifi cant catalyst for the $7 million project and said he was “incredibly optimistic” they’ll have more funding from public and private sources.

Milwaukee’s numbers are indicative of the whole region’s popularity.

This year, the Great Lakes Cruise Association expects eight ships with 20,735 berths to visit the lakes, and next year 10 ships with 27,000 berths.

“We’ve been at this for 22 years. We’ve been teaching geography,” said executive director Stephen Burnett. “Our mission has been to try and expose the diversity of the Great Lakes,” including tiny communities where expedition ships can stop. They passed the tipping point of getting the message out several years ago. Now, “cruise lines are coming to us.”

Furthermore, “it’s probably the safest place in the world to go cruising,” he said.

“Interest in small-ship cruising and boutique experiences has grown everywhere, and the demand for smallship domestic cruises around the USA, especially on the Great Lakes, continues to outpace other destinations,” said David Luxeder, director of marketing for Pearl Seas Cruises. A sister company to American Cruise Lines (ACL), Pearl Seas’ Pearl Mist has been sailing the Great Lakes since 2014.

“Pre-Covid, we regularly sold-out our summer Great Lakes cruises, so after nearly two years' pause in cruising the region, we are seeing tremendous interest for our 2022 small ship cruises,” especially an 11-night Great Lakes itinerary, he said. While passengers may want a longer trip, they also “still prefer to explore a little closer to home, and in smaller groups.”

People “want to cruise now without complications and uncertainty, and the Great Lakes check all those boxes,” said Michael Hicks, spokesman for American Queen Voyages, whose brands include Victory Cruise Lines, which sails the lakes, and American Queen Steamboat Co. Even before the turmoil in Ukraine, passengers were looking for cruises that were simple and easily accessible.

They, too, have seen a demand to cruise in North America and discover the Great Lakes, which he termed “an untapped market so convenient to get to with incredible ports.” This February their Great Lakes bookings were up 25% over January. — D. K. DuPont

Pearl Seas

Passenger vessel operator Pearl Seas has been sailing the Great Lakes since 2014.

Lawrence Seaway Development Corp., which said it provides safer, more ef cient freight movement. Not all vessels are HFM compatible, so line handlers will still be needed.

Vessels on both locks use line handlers. A new lock is “de nitely going to expedite things for us. The majority of the salties have to go through the Poe lock,” said Dan Gallagher, chief line handler for Soo Linehandling, a Great Lakes Group af liate.

They have 12 handlers, four people per vessel.

The line handlers lost some weather protection this past season when one of their shelters was removed because of construction. Jeff Harrington, the locks’ chief of operations, said they’re working on replacing it.

“It’s critical they get this new lock built,” said Capt. Jon Olney, president of the Western Great Lakes Pilots Association, Brimley, Mich., whose area includes the locks. It will be “a good help for all the shipping interests on the Great Lakes.” Pilots’ biggest challenges are “delays in trying to get through,” he said. “Ships don’t operate on a consistent schedule. One can’t go up until the other one’s gone down.

“We’ve had ships that would go to anchor because the delay’s going to be so long,” Olney added. And the MacArthur’s seasonal closure, which is longer than the Poe’s, puts more traf c through the Poe.

He and others were skeptical a new lock would become a reality. “I doubted it would ever happen,” Olney said. But, he added, “they are well on their way.”