GTADiver
Contributor
In case you missed this article, the dredging of the seaway will destroy the 100 + visibility we are now enjoying. It will also drop the river level as the dredged area fills, leaving shallow water areas at a low water level at the beginning of the season. We all know how bad it gets toward the end of the summer with the water levels dropping. Just imagine how bad it will be once the season begins that way.
U.S. Corps to proceed with study of seaway
By MARK CALDER
Staff Writer
Before pressing ahead with a proposal for a massive expansion of the St. Lawrence Seaway, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wants to find out how much it will cost to fix what's there now.
The corps hopes to use $1.5 million approved by the U.S. government to help fund a new review supplementing a recent $1-million reconnaissance study into whether the seaway should be expanded, said Wayne Schloop, a corps engineer and project manager for the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway Review Project.
The exact cost of the new study and when it will start will depend on what kind of agreement the U.S. government can get from Canada to fund or support it, as well as its final scope.
However, Schloop expects the 30-month study could cost $5-$8 million, adding the corps hopes to start as early as this spring.
The studies are being undertaken as groundwork to support a corps' proposal to expand the system and fix aging locks, some dating back to the 1950s.
Preliminary plans peg the cost of proposed work at $87 million for dredging alone to $1.44 billion to install larger locks and guarantee passage of ships with drafts up to 35 feet.
The supplemental study could provide basic data needed in order to sell the concept of expansion to governments on both sides of the border.
It could also provide a less expensive option to preserving the current seaway for navigation should governments refuse the expansion.
"The basic idea here is that before any case can be made for expansion or alterations or any type of improvements or modification to the existing system, you really have to know what state the existing system's in and the amount of investment it will take to sustain the existing system," he said.
The study will look at the state of the existing locks, what repairs or improvements are needed, as well as details on how the seaway operates. Engineers also intend to build a library of data from existing environmental studies.
The study would also allow an investigation of the Canadian assets along the system, something that wasn't done in the earlier reconnaissance study.
Plans to expand the system have raised the ire of environmentalists and homeowners on both sides of the river.
They fear a range of problems from the impact on tourism to environmental problems such as introduction of invasive species
Published in Section A, page 3 in the Thursday, February 20, 2003 edition of the Brockville Recorder & Times.
Posted 4:32:18 PM Thursday, February 20, 2003.
U.S. Corps to proceed with study of seaway
By MARK CALDER
Staff Writer
Before pressing ahead with a proposal for a massive expansion of the St. Lawrence Seaway, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wants to find out how much it will cost to fix what's there now.
The corps hopes to use $1.5 million approved by the U.S. government to help fund a new review supplementing a recent $1-million reconnaissance study into whether the seaway should be expanded, said Wayne Schloop, a corps engineer and project manager for the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway Review Project.
The exact cost of the new study and when it will start will depend on what kind of agreement the U.S. government can get from Canada to fund or support it, as well as its final scope.
However, Schloop expects the 30-month study could cost $5-$8 million, adding the corps hopes to start as early as this spring.
The studies are being undertaken as groundwork to support a corps' proposal to expand the system and fix aging locks, some dating back to the 1950s.
Preliminary plans peg the cost of proposed work at $87 million for dredging alone to $1.44 billion to install larger locks and guarantee passage of ships with drafts up to 35 feet.
The supplemental study could provide basic data needed in order to sell the concept of expansion to governments on both sides of the border.
It could also provide a less expensive option to preserving the current seaway for navigation should governments refuse the expansion.
"The basic idea here is that before any case can be made for expansion or alterations or any type of improvements or modification to the existing system, you really have to know what state the existing system's in and the amount of investment it will take to sustain the existing system," he said.
The study will look at the state of the existing locks, what repairs or improvements are needed, as well as details on how the seaway operates. Engineers also intend to build a library of data from existing environmental studies.
The study would also allow an investigation of the Canadian assets along the system, something that wasn't done in the earlier reconnaissance study.
Plans to expand the system have raised the ire of environmentalists and homeowners on both sides of the river.
They fear a range of problems from the impact on tourism to environmental problems such as introduction of invasive species
Published in Section A, page 3 in the Thursday, February 20, 2003 edition of the Brockville Recorder & Times.
Posted 4:32:18 PM Thursday, February 20, 2003.
) Not to mention iron ore to the mills in Hamilton, grain going the other way (and you can't carry grain away in the train car or truck trailer the ore arrived in so it's deadheading back). in time delivery.
