[NYTr] As Great Lakes shrink, cargo carriers worry

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

International Herald Tribune - Oct 23, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/23/america/lakes.php

As Great Lakes shrink, cargo carriers worry

OSWEGO, New York: From his office at the port here, Jonathan Daniels
stared at a watermark etched on the rocks that hug one of the
commercial piers - a thick, dark line several inches above the surface
of Lake Ontario - and wondered how much lower the water would dip.

"What we need is some rain," said Daniels, director of the Port of
Oswego Authority, one of a dozen public port agencies on the U.S. side
of the Great Lakes.

"The more we lose water, the less cargo the ships that travel in the
Great Lakes can carry, and each time that happens, shipping companies
lose money," he said. "Ultimately, it's people like you and I who are
going to pay the price."

Water levels in the Great Lakes are falling; Lake Ontario, for
example, is about 7 inches, or 18 centimeters, below where it was a
year ago. And for every inch of water the lakes lose, the ships that
ferry bulk materials across them must lighten their loads by 270 tons
or risk running aground, according to the Lake Carriers' Association,
a trade group for U.S.-flag cargo companies.

As a result, more ships are needed, adding millions of dollars to
shipping companies' operating costs, experts in maritime commerce
estimate.

"When a ship leaves a dock and it's not filled to capacity, it's the
same as a plane leaving an airport with empty seats: it cuts into
their earning capacity," said Richard Stewart, a co-director of the
Transportation and Logistics Research Center at the University of
Wisconsin-Superior.

"Because it's mostly raw materials we're talking about, the average
consumer may see an increase in pennies in the price they pay for,
say, a new car or washing machine," Stewart said. For major
manufacturers or firms managing big projects, however, the increase in
transportation costs "is much more significant," he said.

The port of Oswego receives scraps of aluminum from Canada, which are
rolled into sheets at a local plant and sent to car manufacturers;
soybeans for a biodiesel plant in nearby Fulton; and parts for
windmills that are used to generate power on a farm south of
Canandaigua Lake, near the city of Rochester, said L. Michael
Treadwell, director of Operation Oswego County, a nonprofit economic
development agency.