value to the nation: inland navigation brochure
TRANSCRIPT
Inland WaterwayNavigation
US Army Corps of Engineers
Value of Inland NavigationAs the sun rises over the Mississippi River a 15-barge tow slides slowly past theSt. Louis Harbor and heads south to New Orleans where its cargo of grain willbe transferred to a container ship for export overseas. The barge is one of manyworking the Mississippi and the nation’s other great rivers on this day. Togetherthese barges move more than 630 million tons of cargo over the nation’s 25,000miles of inland and intracoastal waterways each year.
inWe are all dependent on the products—petroleum
(gasoline, crude oil, jet fuel); coal; sand and gravel usedconstruction; and grain—being shipped on our nation’s
rivers.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is responsible forensuring the safe, reliable, efficient and environmentallysustainable movement of vessels on more than half (about12,000 miles) of the nation’s inland and intracoastal waterwaysystem. The Corps responsibilities include constructing andmaintaining navigation channels and harbors and regulatingwater levels on inland waterways.
Value of Inland Navigation
inThe nation’s inland and intracoastal waterway system
carries nearly 1/6 of the cargo moved between citiesthe U.S. The Mississippi River and its tributaries and
the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway connect Gulf Coast ports,such as Mobile, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Houston,and Corpus Christi, with major inland ports, includingMemphis, St. Louis, Chicago, Minneapolis, Cincinnatiand Pittsburgh. The Mississippi River from Baton Rougeto the Gulf of Mexico allows ocean shipping to connectwith the barge traffic, thereby making this segment vitalto both the domestic and foreign trade of the UnitedStates. In the Pacific Northwest, the Columbia-SnakeRiver System allows navigation 465 miles inland toLewiston, Idaho.
Barges are particularly well-suited for the movement oflarge quantities of bulk commodities, such as petroleum,coal, grain and raw materials at a relatively low cost.
• Coal is the largest commodity by volume movingon our inland waterways. America’s utility industrydepends on the nation’s rivers for over 20 percent ofthe coal they consume to produce the electricity wedepend on to run our homes, offices and industries.Overall, coal accounts for 50 percent of our nation’selectricity production.
• About 22 percent of domestic petroleum is shippedby water.
• More than 60 percent of farm exports move on inlandwaterways such as the Lower Mississippi or Columbiarivers to downstream ports such as New Orleans forshipment overseas. Nearly 80 million tons of grainmove by barge annually.
• Other major commodities including metal ores;stone, sand and gravel used in construction;chemicals including fertilizers; steel and cement;and many other products are also shipped by water.
Inland Waterway CommoditiesSHARE BY TONS, 2006
US Army Corps of Engineers
Value to the Economy
efforInland navigation is a key element of state and localgovernment economic development and job creation
ts and is essential to maintaining our nation’seconomic competitiveness and national security.
Inland and intracoastal waterways directly serve 38 statesthroughout the nation’s heartland, the Atlantic seaboard, theGulf Coast and the Pacific Northwest. The shippers andconsumers in these states relied on the inlandmove over 622 million tons of cargo in2007. All domestic waterborne commerce(inland, coastal and Great Lakes)amounted to over 1 billion tons with avalue of over $380 billion in 2007.These goods were shipped from 40 states.
• Texas, Louisiana and Alaska eachship over $20 billion worth of cargoannually.
• Illinois, New York, California andWashington each ship between $10and $20 billion yearly.
• Another eight states ship between$5 billion and $10 billion per year.
It is $11 cheaper per ton to send thesegoods by water compared to other formsof transportation (such as trucks ortrains), according to research by theTennessee Valley Authority. Thattranslates into nearly $7 billion in annualtransportation savings for America’s economy.
waterways to
US Army Corps of Engineers
Did you know that…
A single 15-barge tow can carry 26,250 tonsof cargo or as much as 240 train cars or1,050 tractor-trailer trucks?It would take an additional 6 million rail carsor 24 million trucks to transport the amount ofcargo carried on inland waterways each year.
Value to the Environment
US Army Corps of Engineers
The Corps carefully evaluates the environmental impact ofeach navigation project it undertakes. We typically perform
computer modeling of planned changes to river and estuarysystems to fully assess and limit the environmental effects ofnavigation projects before any work begins.
Other ways that the Corps works to protect theenvironment when navigation projects are undertaken include:
• using dredge material as a resource for habitat andwetland creation,
• reducing disruption and damage to marine species bycareful timing of dredging activities, and
• limiting environmental harm caused by dredging byusing high-tech instruments to monitor dredge locationsand activity.
Another, less visible environmental benefit of the Corpsnavigation projects is that they help limit air pollutionemissions by enabling tows with many barges to move cargolong distances on considerably less fuel than trains or truckswould need to move the same amount of cargo the samedistance. The ability to move much more cargo per shipmentby water than is possible by truck or train means thatransport is both fuel-efficient andenvironmentally advantageous. On average, agallon of fuel allows one ton of cargo to beshipped 155 miles by truck, 436 miles by railand 576 miles by barge. America’s inlandwaterways allow America to realize tremendoussavings in fuel consumption and reduced airemissions from fuel combustion.
t barge
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
Rail
How far one gallon of fuel movesone ton of freight, average by mode…
Truck
Barge
MILES
US Army Corps of Engineers
Tomorrow’s Challenges
commerTThe nearly 12,000 miles of U.S. inland and intracoastal
waterways maintained by the Corps include 191cially active lock sites with 237 operable lock
chambers. Some locks have more than one chamber, often ofdifferent dimensions. These locks provide the essentialinfrastructure that allows tows to “stair-step” their waythrough the system and reach distant inland ports such asMinneapolis, Chicago and Pittsburgh.
The locks can generally be categorized into three differentsizes, based on their length:
• 15 percent of the lock chambers are 1000 to1200 feet long
• 60 percent are 600 to 999 feet long
• 25 percent are less than 600 feet long
The 1200-footlocks canaccommodate a towof 17 barges plus thetowboat, while the600-foot locks canaccommodate atmost eight bargesplus the towboat.The lock size andtow size are criticalfactors in the amountof cargo that can passthrough a lock in agiven period of time.Since many of today’stows operate with 12or more barges,passing through a 600-foot lock requires the tow to be “cut”into two sections to pass the lock. Such multiple cuts can be
time consuming and cause long queues of tows waiting fortheir turn to move through the lock.
Over 50 percent of the locks and dams operated by theCorps are over 50 years old. Many of the 600-foot locks onthe system were built in the 1930s or earlier, including thoseon the heavily-used Ohio, Upper Mississippi, Illinois andTennessee rivers. These projects are approaching the end oftheir design lives and are in need of modernization or majorrehabilitation. The consequences of this aging infrastructure
are increasing incidents of downtime and a higher risk ofmajor component failures.
Modernizing the Locks
In the 1960s the Corps began to modernize the locks on theOhio River and add 1200-foot chambers that permit a
typical tow to pass in a single lockage. This modernizationprocess continues today with the construction of a new damwith twin 1200-foot locks at Olmsted located at theconfluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and 1200-footchambers at the McAlpine and John T. Myers Locks andDams also on the Ohio. In addition, modern 1200-footchambers are being constructed at Kentucky Lock on theTennessee River and at Inner Harbor Lock on the GulfIntracoastal Waterway at New Orleans. Other projects areunderway in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Arkansas. Inaddition, several major rehabilitations of existing locks areunderway.
Tomorrow’s Challenges
US Army Corps of Engineers
Altogether this ongoing work represents an investment ofover $3.5 billion in inland waterway modernization that willbe completed over the next decade. Half of this investmentcomes from fuel taxes paid by the inland towing industry.These rehabilitation projects include not only thedevelopment of modern navigation facilities, but alsoimportant investments in environmental restoration andmanagement.
Several key navigation improvement projects are authorizedor under study throughout the inland waterway system,including on the Upper Mississippi River and IllinoisWaterway, Ohio River, the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, andthe McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System. These
studies will identify the navigation andenvironmental actions needed to support theinland waterway system of the future.
Annual capital spending for the inlandwaterway system has increased from less than$200 million in recent years to nearly $650million for 2009 (including funds provided bythe American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of
will help accelerate completion datesfor ongoing lock modernization.
Domestic freight traffic isexpected to increase by 67 percentin coming years. More of thisfreight could be moved by bargewith economic and environmentalbenefits if our navigation system isdeemed reliable. It has beenestimated that postponing waterwaymodernization projects has alreadycost the Nation in excess of $7billion in lost economic value.Timely completion of currentinland navigation projects andjustified future navigationimprovements would allow Americato meet the transportationchallenges of the 21st Centurywhile protecting and enhancing ourNation’s treasured river heritage.
2009). This
Working Together
In carrying out its inland navigation responsibilities, theCorps works closely with a variety of Federal agencies
including most prominently the U.S. Department ofTransportation (DOT), the Department of HomelandSecurity (DHS) and the Department of Commerce (DOC).
The DHS, through the U.S. Coast Guard, hasresponsibility for vessel and navigation safety and providesnavigation aids and search and rescue services. The DOT’sMaritime Administration supports the development of U.S.ports, intermodal systems and domestic shipping, while
DOT’s St. Lawrence Seaway DevelopmentCorporation supports the operation of thatwaterway in partnership with Canadian authorities.DOC’s National Oceanic and AtmosphericAdministration provides surveys, tidal informationand coastal charts.
The Corps also partners with state and localgovernments, port authorities, and many privateenvironmental groups and trade organizations tosolve problems and take advantage of water resourcedevelopment opportunities that are in the nationalinterest.
We look forward to expanding thesepartnerships and building new alliances as we workto meet the challenges and opportunities facing ournation’s ports and harbors in the years ahead.
Learning More:
To learn more about the nation’sinland and intracoastal waterways andthe Corps role in maintaining them,please visit www.CorpsResults.us.
© 2009 Produced by the U.S. Army Engineer Institute for Water Resources in partnership with the Headquarters. To inquireabout this brochure, please contact the IWR publications office at [email protected]. For the sources ofinformation used in this brochure, visit www.CorpsResults.us.