"Why Are the Boats Sitting Out There?" We Answer A Few Landlubber Questions

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Call it the Season of Salties. This time of year, you can see a few more oceangoing vessels arrive at Lake Superior’s ports, loading grain from the U.S. and Canadian “bread baskets” to deliver to the world.

A few weeks hence brings an upswing in lakers, those Great Lakes freighters racing to deliver limestone to stockpile in the Twin Ports for Iron Range pellet making and to carry away iron ore to supply mills on the lower lakes before ice and the mid-January closing of the Soo Locks send them into hibernation.

All of that makes this the perfect time of year to talk like a sailor.

No, no, not the colorful language, but the answers to a few landlubber questions about the goings-on in and around our ports.

These log notes will help you to speak knowledgeably (read that “to show off”) next time you take visitors to see the big boats.

Why are the boats sitting out there?

The reason a ship, most often foreign, anchors for hours or days outside the harbors comes down to two simple words: free parking.

The reasons a ship might need to be at anchor, however, are more varied.

Fees kick in once a vessel enters the harbor, according to Carol Carrasca, a freight forwarder who retired after more than 40 years organizing shipments of goods for Lakeshead Forwarding.

Among expenses tallied are U.S. pilots and tugs to guide the ship to dock, line handlers to tie it up and dockage fees that figure in 24-hour guard duty and dockside insurance. Costs such as for pilots and line handlers repeat each time a ship moves to a new location for layby or to load. In an article for the Duluth Seaway Port Authority’s North Star Port magazine, Carol wrote: “All told, this can total thousands of dollars that neither the owner of the ship nor the charterer will be willing to pay.”

Avoiding extra days of charges means savings for the company and keeping sailors onboard assures the ship is not shorthanded when its turn to load comes up.

Just why a vessel ends up waiting includes a long list of logistical challenges.

It’s difficult to schedule an exact arrival date for a foreign vessel crossing the ocean and then making the 2,342-mile trek up the St. Lawrence Seaway to the western tip of Lake Superior. Ships may be delayed or ahead of schedule due to weather or crew changes in other ports, says Adele Yorde, public relations manager for the Duluth Seaway Port Authority.

Final contract negotiations might delay loading. As Carol writes, “Considering that grain cargoes can easily be worth more than $10 million, contracts putting the sales together will take time, so the ship may have to sit at anchor for a couple days.”

Rail capacity can dictate when product is available. This year in particular, an increase in oil hauling delayed the grain shipments that foreign vessels come to pick up.

When an abundance of an agricultural product arrives, there may not be enough berths to service all the vessels ready to load, and ships must take turns, Adele explains.

So the bottom line answer when visitors ask “Why are the ships sitting out there?” is that it involves companies’ bottom lines.  

What’s fueling a fuel change?

A deadline is looming for the Great Lakes maritime industry. By January 1, 2015, vessels must comply with more stringent controls on sulfur-dioxide emissions as mandated within the North American Emissions Control Area (essentially all U.S. and Canadian fresh and saltwater coasts). The sulfur content of vessel fuel must be no more than 0.1 percent by weight, a substantial reduction from the 1 percent allowed in 2010.

To comply, companies have several options. Vessels may be retrofitted to burn a more costly, ultra-low sulfur No. 2 diesel fuel, which has reduced sulfur emissions.

Alternately, they may treat the emissions from their stacks using mechanical “scrubber” equipment to cleanse the exhaust and achieve the same effect as lower-sulfur fuel.

A third option is to burn an alternate fuel. Liquified natural gas, or LNG, a leading alternative, is a much cleaner fuel, meets the emission standards and is less expensive than diesel. However, it requires costly engine modifications and, though the investment would be recouped by lower fuel costs, the upfront expense is considerable. Converting Great Lakes carriers would cost $15-25 million per vessel, Glen Nekvasil, vice president of the Ohio-based Lake Carriers’ Association, told The Globe and Mail of Toronto.

The other challenge is finding LNG refueling sites along the Great Lakes routes, a financial commitment from fuel sellers while current demand may still be low.

Great Lakes Fleet/Key Lakes, based in Duluth, is investigating LNG conversion, as is Interlake Steamship Co. of Middleburg Heights, Ohio, but it’s more likely they will first switch to the No. 2 diesel to meet the January deadline.

Did late ice hurt maritime traffic?

Despite the late spring ice and about a four-week delay of the season opening, Thunder Bay’s port handled more than 1.5 million tons of cargo in May, the largest one-month tally since 1998; it hosted visitations by 26 salties, the most in any month since 2000. More than 1.3 million tons of grain exported through the port’s eight grain elevators accounted for much of May’s tonnage. Coal and dry bulk were other prominent cargos.

In Duluth-Superior, the first 2014 saltie of the season arrived the latest ever – on May 7. By contrast, in 2013, the first saltie arrived March 30, the earliest arrival ever. Before this year, the latest saltie spring arrival date was May 3, 1959, the year the seaway opened.

Once under way, though, ports rebounded with vitality this summer. In July, 7.2 million tons of iron ore went through the Soo Locks, the highest for that month since 2008.

What’s that boat with the crane?

On Highway H2O, dirt impacts maritime movement and profitability as much as water.

From the earliest days of maritime traffic, dredging has kept channels usable. Legend has it Duluth citizens with shovels did their own dredging to create the ship canal in 1870.

Because of the sediment deposited in the harbor by the St. Louis and Nemadji rivers, the majority of dredging on Lake Superior today occurs in the port of Duluth-Superior.

This spring and summer, it was not uncommon to see barges with cranes and clamshell diggers anchored near the Duluth piers for days. Work goes on around the clock with two-person crews on 12-hour shifts.

Most other ports, with less river flowage, require less dredging. At Marquette, dredging by the ore dock is funded by the dock owners, the Lake Superior and Ishpeming Railroad. At the Soo Locks, the U.S. government pays for the primary need, to rid the channel below the locks of large rocks that can damage ships.

In Thunder Bay, most dredging was in the upper Kaministiquia River, which has not been dredged in more than 30 years, says Port CEO Tim Heney. “Most harbour activity today occurs in the North Harbour, which has more than adequate depth without maintenance dredging. The last dredging program in the harbour took place in 2007.”

With the Lake up 1.5 feet from last year, adequate depth is not an issue in Thunder Bay or in the naturally deep channel at Two Harbors, Minnesota.

Rivers are not the only influences on channel depth. Heavy rains contribute to shoaling, or shallowing, with runoff soil. Even ships’ turning propellers loosen material on the sides of channels that collects on the bottom.

You’d think for a 1,000-foot vessel an inch or two less of depth wouldn’t mean much, but every inch means nearly 250 tons less cargo – a significant reduction in per-load payment.

In Duluth-Superior, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers must maintain a minimum depth of 27 feet along most of the nearly 17 miles of the navigation channel. On average, 110,000 cubic yards of material is removed each year. “That volume would be like covering the entire area of a football field with 80 feet of dirt,” explains Corps Area Engineer Steven Brossart.

The Corps prioritizes dredging collaboratively with the port and fleets. “Each summer, we complete a hydrographic survey,” he says. “We look at the shoaling conditions, then sit down with the stakeholders.”

This year the work is in overdrive, with planned removal of 170,000 cubic yards of material to make up for past years when tight funds limited the amount of dredging. Although a harbor maintenance tax for each vessel entering a U.S. harbor goes into a dredging fund, those dollars have not been fully accessible to local ports.

Passage of the 2014 Water Resources Reform and Development Act may free up funds. “It treats the Great Lakes as a system, which recognizes the interdependency of our harbors and channels,” says Marie Strum, assistant chief of engineering and technical services for the Corps’ Detroit District.

What happens to all that dirt?

Dredging doesn’t end with hauling up sediment; that material has to go somewhere.

Long ago, dredged materials were used to create Barker’s and Hog islands in Superior and Interstate Island, just off the Blatnik Bridge, now a nesting site for common tern and gulls.

More recently, concerns about contamination in dredged material restricted its use. In Duluth-Superior, dredged sediment were placed at Erie Pier, an 89-acre area once owned by Zenith Dredge Company and purchased in 1979 for a “confined disposal facility” by the Duluth Seaway Port Authority.

As Erie Pier filled up, creative solutions were sought to re-use the material. Erie Pier was refocused from disposal to recycling.

“Material that is brought to the site is tested and, if deemed to meet certain standards, the material can be made available for on-land use,” explains Nelson French, a unit supervisor for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

The approved material is sorted by size at Erie Pier into two grades: coarse and fine.

Coarse, or sand, grade is used for roads and construction. Fine material, described as “reclaimed soil,” has been used in pilot projects in Minnesota and Wisconsin on mining land, landfills and even on golf course fairways.

“We are the only place in the Great Lakes and one of the few places nationally that have recognized the need for recycling or the beneficial re-use of dredged materials,” says Ted Smith, president of Marine Tech, which does dredging. He credits much of that progress to the Harbor Technical Advisory Committee, of which he is a member. The committee of government representatives, citizen and industry groups, and technical advisors has been cited as a model for advancing techniques and pooling funds, Ted says. “The committee’s strength is its ability to get industry and government agencies all on the same page.”

A few pilot projects using dredged materials are promising:

• Hibbing Taconite, partnered with the Natural Resources Research Institute at the University of Minnesota Duluth, has used the material to reclaim lands in its tailing basin perimeter dam.

“It is challenging to grow vegetation in the area due to the makeup of the soil,” says Sandy Karnowski, district manager of public affairs with Cliffs Natural Resources, part owner and manager of Hibbing Taconite. “The plan is to use the dredged, nutrient-rich organic material to determine if it can help our operation build a thriving vegetative natural landscape.”

Results are encouraging, though the cost of hauling materials from Duluth are daunting.

It’s a three-part evaluation for NRRI researcher Larry Zanko. “We aim for projects that make economic sense, environmental sense and solve problems.”

• At the old Atlas Cement site near Morgan Park in Duluth, dredged material was used to build a stormwater pond. It proved effective as a catch basin, and the “fine” material acted as a treatment system. The city plans to make more ponds and find other uses.

“It was so effective, we are thrilled,” says Heidi Timm-Bjold from the Department of Business and Economic Development for the city of Duluth. “Vegetation grew almost overnight and acted as a filter for the water.”

• Of all reuse trials, the 21st Avenue West Pilot Project gets local experts the most excited. This three-year experiment, now in its second year, uses dredged material to recreate wildlife and fish habitat lost in the St. Louis Bay. It’s visible at the Duluth end of the Blatnik Bridge. “People had a vision for years to shallow up shoreline areas to recreate a shallow bay habitat,” says MPCA’s Nelson French.

Using the plentiful dredged material for fill would seem obvious, but state agencies, cautious about contamination, would not permit it back in the water until a new testing method was developed. The new protocol, created among several agencies, allayed fears of reintroducing contamination.

“We are educated and comfortable with using dredged material as a resource to help clean up the harbor,” says Jim Sharrow, facilities manager at the Duluth Seaway Port Authority and a member of the harbor committee.

Dredged material at the 21st Avenue site made shallower areas that encourage growth of vegetation and marine wildlife.

The project is subject to extensive monitoring and has pooled the skills and funding from local, state and federal agencies. Experts scrutinize materials going into the bay, and environmental groups study fish, birds and wildlife.

On the strength of this success, similar habitat projects are envisioned for 40th Avenue West and Grassy Point. Work on the Pier B project near Canal Park proposes dredged materials to shallow the bay and stabilize old docks.

“We expect to fully use all dredged material for the next six years for these environmental projects,” says Nelson. “There could be competition for this material in the future, but restoration will remain a priority.”

This spring, Jim Sharrow saw a species in the bay’s open waters near 21st Avenue West that’s a sure sign of success: “Fishermen discovered the areas where the dredged materials have been placed.”

Molly Hoeg, a regular contributor to this magazine, maintains her home port in Duluth.