[A bit science, a bit news of the weird.] March 5, 2010
Carp Solution Could Provide Financial Benefits By DAVID GREISING and DANIEL LIBIT NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/us/07cncimpact.html?ref=business&pagewanted=print Proposals to block Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes have largely focused on the costs and inconvenience of closing off Chicago-area waterways into Lake Michigan. But now business and environmental groups are exploring a possible upside: a broadly based infrastructure investment that would benefit much of northern Illinois. Construction, jobs in the freight sector and money-saving improvements in transportation networks could be among the results of efforts to create what environmentalists call “ecological separation” between Lake Michigan and the rivers and canals leading to the Mississippi River, the source of the voracious carp that have made their way nearly to the lake. Other Great Lakes states estimate if the carp established itself in the lakes it would cause billions in economic damage. They have sued Illinois to prevent that from happening. . Tour-boat companies, barge operators, recreational boaters and others have cried out against one proposal: the intermittent closing of two locks that connect the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal to Lake Michigan. The Illinois attorney general has argued in a court filing that such closings would threaten a system that carries $16 billion in goods through the state each year. The Illinois Chamber of Commerce is expected to release a report next month putting a price tag on what a lock closing could cost. But an unlikely alignment of environmental and business interests is looking beyond such claims toward the longer-term benefits of a permanent solution to the carp problem. Some of them say separating Lake Michigan and the Mississippi watersheds would lead to construction of shipping and terminal facilities that could bring hundreds of millions of dollars in investment as well as thousands of new jobs. “People get all worked up about the carp when the large-scale stuff is just not getting attention,” said George A. Ranney Jr., chief executive of Chicago Metropolis 2020, a business group that advocates for regional transportation planning. “The issue is, can we build a consensus on something bigger than just stopping that fish?” In a 2005 report, Chicago Metropolis 2020 called for building major terminals where freight could be transferred easily among different modes of transportation, like rail cars, trucks and river barges. The terminals would allow shippers to load their goods onto the most efficient means of transport. Construction of five such terminals in key locations on the outskirts of Chicago, along with other efficiencies and infrastructure improvements, could save $5 billion a year in trucking costs alone, the report said. The report has drawn little attention, but proposals for intermodal transit facilities and other far-reaching measures are beginning to emerge now that Congress, the Obama administration and state governments are trying to find ways to contain the carp. “The real debate needs to be on how to separate the Illinois waterways from the Great Lakes in ways that benefit the entire region,” said Joel Brammeier, president of the Alliance for the Great Lakes, an environmental group. Creating a permanent, ecological barrier between Lake Michigan and Illinois waterways would require, at a minimum, building a water treatment facility that would eliminate the possibility that any aquatic creature could move between the lake and Mississippi River watersheds. Backers of such a project liken its potential ecological impact to the reversal of the Chicago River’s flow nearly a century ago. That historic engineering feat kept the city’s waste out of the lake while this one would keep out marauding fish. The water treatment plant would be part of a larger transportation complex that would enable shipments to move efficiently and quickly up and down the Illinois River and other waterways. The complex might include cranes capable of hoisting boats from the water, railroad sidings and truck bays — and possibly massive conveyor belts to move cargo or even boats. While the federal government would most likely cover at least part of the construction cost, private industry has already demonstrated a capacity to build such facilities without massive government aid. The railroad company Union Pacific is building a $370 million intermodal facility on 3,900 acres outside Peoria that is set to open this year. The debate over how best to stop the carp has intensified along with the invasive fish’s seemingly irresistible progress toward Lake Michigan. Illinois has battled other Great Lakes states in a war of words about the costs and risks associated with Asian carp. When a Michigan-sponsored study that was released last month claimed that the closing of two key locks leading into Lake Michigan would cost the Illinois economy only $70 million, the Illinois Chamber of Commerce began a new research effort intended to counter what it saw as an outrageously low estimate. The Michigan study, by Prof. John Taylor of Wayne State University, is “so far removed from science I don’t know how to comment” on it, said James Farrell, executive director of the Illinois Chamber. Professor Taylor has defended his study, which makes a case that the Illinois waterway running into Lake Michigan is hardly the vital economic lifeline that the Illinois Chamber and other defenders insist it is. Using U.S. Army Corps of Engineers data, he showed that the O’Brien Lock, the key barge channel into Lake Michigan, saw barge traffic drop by half from 1994 to 2008, to 7,063 total barges. In addition, trips by tour boats and other recreational and commercial vessels, which principally use the Chicago Lock near Navy Pier, fell 39 percent during the period, to 34,249 total trips, Professor Taylor wrote. The alternative to permanent separation — temporary and stopgap measures — has its costs, too. Despite electronic barriers and other efforts to contain the carp, a recent University of Notre Dame study found traces of carp DNA in Calumet Harbor, near Navy Pier and at the Wilmette pumping station. Because two electronic barriers have not completely stopped the advance of the carp, the Obama administration set aside $78.5 million this year for building a third electronic barrier. The Corps of Engineers’ proposal to close two key locks intermittently this summer, one near Navy Pier and the other near Calumet Harbor, could cost shipping, recreation, tourism and other companies millions of dollars. Ozinga Brothers, a concrete producer based in Evanston, ships the equivalent of 100,000 truckloads of material by barge from downstate into Chicago each year, the company said. If a lock closing forced the company to ship by truck, freight costs would jump as much as 40 percent, said Aaron Ozinga, president of the company’s material handling division. At Shoreline Sightseeing, whose tour boats ply waters from the Chicago River into Lake Michigan, uncertainties about the lock at Navy Pier are causing difficulty at the worst time — when the company typically is hiring 40 captains and more than 250 crew members even as its cash flow is at its ebb tide. This year, hiring plans may have to be delayed. “One of the big unknowns is whether this is a temporary, one-season thing, a one-month thing, or a bigger-picture thing that could be even more devastating,” said Chip Collopy, president of Shoreline Sightseeing. A permanent separation of Lake Michigan from the rivers and canals that connect it with the Mississippi would not cause significant dislocation of commercial waterway traffic, according to data from the Waterways Council, which lobbies on behalf of inland shippers. The two systems are already essentially separate commercial entities. In 2005, some 7,568 kilotons shipped through the O’Brien Lock, in the Cal-Sag Channel on the far South Side, which is the key transit point for cargo traffic between the lake and the Illinois waterway system. That amounted to less than 1 percent of the tonnage through all Illinois locks that year. Indeed, most of the river and canal traffic in Illinois originates below the O’Brien Lock and involves grains, ore and other commodities that do not travel through the Great Lakes. Jeffrey Adkisson, executive vice president of the Grain & Feed Association of Illinois, said the debate over proposals to stop the Asian carp had prompted less alarm among the group’s members than he had expected. “Our members are largely going down the river to the gulf,” Mr. Adkisson said. Within weeks, the Army Corps is expected to propose a solution for containing the carp. Henry Henderson, director of the Midwest Program for the Natural Resources Defense Council, is pushing for a permanent solution. “We think the longer-term, permanent solutions can actually enhance the transport and movement of goods throughout the region,” Mr. Henderson said. -- ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 Mail: antunes at uh dot edu _______________________________________________ Medianews mailing list [email protected] http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
