Boatnerd Discussion Forum

All the locks in the Seaway are more than 60years old and most have a much greater lift height and no one is even considering replacing them due to age.
Is the Davis really limited to 75' wide? I thought that it was 80 feet wide which should make it good for the 78 foot Seaway size. There are no turns and curves in the approach walls for the Corp to justify limiting to 75ft! All the ballasted salties are less than 23' draft and many of the domestic ships could come up to less than 23 feet if it would give them a quick lockage. Fuel is not a concern if they are upbound in ballast they can pump out some ballast -no issue for most on a nice day.
The delays last year were ridiculous. This year the delays are going to be worse will all the Canadian steel mills using Lake Superior ore and all their ships are 78ft wide.
The Mac lock could handle all the Salties and Canadians if the Corp would change there policy or at the most renovate the bend in the wall and "bumpers".

There seems like a lot of things to consider with all that has been offered in this thread so far. Let's start with the Davis Lock.

That lock can accommodate anything up to 75 feet wide. The problem is the sills are only 23 feet deep. So it could only handle upbound traffic, nothing loaded down bound. This might seem like a good thing since that would relive a lot of traffic upbound for vessels 75 wide up to 800+ long given it's long length between the sills. That works okay as long as the vessel isn't bunkered down full of fuel on the back end of the boat. Trouble is, a lot of the boats are heavy on the back end, so they can't clear the sills. If they came through light enough to clear the sills on The Davis, where do they get fuel to make it to Duluth, Two harbors, Thunder Bay? Maybe Marquette or Essar? Well, maybe okay. They can fuel at that dock.

With the Mac, well there is this supposed issue about hitting the bumpers with vessels over 76 wide. And there is this other supposed issue with vessels over 740, let alone the 767's, about making the turn above the locks in case another vessel might be waiting above the locks. This to me is just an over reach about safety. It could easily be addressed by letting a 740 or 767 lock through with a vessel waiting on the outer piers. Shucks, this happens all the time during winter/spring break out. I saw it time and time again just a week or so ago. Why would that be an issue if push came to shove to keep traffic moving?

Having said this, do I think a new "Poe" lock is needed. Of course! But do I think the ACOE is being stubborn? Yes.

The opposition to new locks is the large expense in a declining industry. I know the strategic value of the locks but it has to be put into perspective among the other high value infrastructure projects. It just does not rate that high.

The Davis lock is over 100 years old, and has a depth of only 23 feet. A boat that could load to 25-26 ft. would have to load that much less.

I'm not sure what the opposition is to another lock is. The Poe is approaching 50 years old, the Mac in its 70's now. If nothing else, it is a vital piece of infrastructure that is becoming quite aged.

Guest wrote:Only 18 vessels in the entire roster are literally restricted to the Poe Lock. The remainder can use the MacArthur Lock if they were allowed.

I believe it might be 19 vessels; 13 footers plus St. Clair and Blough, Great Lakes Trader and Erie Trader, Lee Tregurtha and Hon. J.L. Oberstar.

Even though 19 out of roughly 90 lakers seems like a smallish fraction, most Poe-restricted ships can carry roughly twice the cargo of their smaller cohorts. The combined carrying capacity of those 19 ships is something like 950,000 long tons. It would take an additional 30 - 35 MacArthur-max ships (740' x 78') to replace the carrying capacity lost if those Poe-restricted ships were unable to trade. There are around 10 MacArthur capable bulk carriers in layup around the Lakes. Given the current condition of some of them it would likely take many months or even a year before they could all be pressed into service in an emergency. That still leaves the Great Lakes roughly 20 MacArthur-max ships short of meeting current carrying capacity if the Poe were to go out of service. That's a shortage of around 550,000 long tons per trip or a loss of around 20,000,000 - 25,000,000 tons per shipping season.

Just for argument's sake:

The Davis lock has been used in recent history. Why not open it up?

Only 18 vessels in the entire roster are literally restricted to the Poe Lock. The remainder can use the MacArthur Lock if they were allowed.

Well of the approximately 90 US and Canadian ore carriers able sail 63 use the Poe Lock.

I would like to know why Gov. Snyders office, refering to the Poe lock, so absolutly states "The only shipping chamber in Sault Ste. Marie large enough to handle most of the ships moving iron ore." Do they only get there information from advocates of a new lock? Most of the ships moving iron ore can use the MacArthur lock. The Army Corp as yet to justify their policy restricting vessels to a 76ft maximum width.