OABA Participates in Ohio Locks & Dams Forum

Maintaining Waterway Infrastructure is Crucial to Ohio Agriculture

Earlier this week, the Ohio AgriBusiness Association (OABA) travelled to Newport, Ky. to learn more about the importance of Ohio’s waterways to the transportation of agricultural goods. The forum, hosted by Ohio Soy 2020 and the Ohio Ag Transportation Coalition, brought together professionals from the agriculture and transportation industries to get a first-hand look at the critical state of Ohio’s locks and dams infrastructure.

The forum kicked off with Rick Calhoun from Cargill Cargo Carriers sharing the current state of Ohio’s locks and dams, the challenges that decaying state presents and solutions for bringing the locks and dams infrastructure up to a quality and safe standard.

Although waterways are just one component of the U.S.’s transportation infrastructure, they are crucial for moving grain and other commodities in an economical, environmentally friendly and safe manner. To transport the amount of product that one barge can hold, you would need 16 rail cars or 70 semi trucks. Barges are also an efficient mode of transportation – a barge gets 616 ton-miles per gallon of fuel, while rail cars only get 478 ton-miles/gallon and trucks only get 158 ton-miles/gallon.

To ensure this mode of transportation continues to provide economical transportation for the Ohio agriculture industry, the locks and dams must be rehabilitated. In fact, one-third of Ohio’s 1,597 dams are in need of rehabilitation to meet state dam safety standards, according to the Army Corps of Engineers. As Calhoun shared, more than 60 percent of the locks are at least 50 years old, and they weren’t built to last that long; these aging structures result in frequent closures for repairs and delays that are costly to the industries transporting goods.

These critical improvements cannot be made until proper funding is in place. Currently, repairs and improvements are provided through the Inland Waterways Trust Fund, which collects taxes from the transportation industry through diesel fuel sales. However, the money available through the fund won’t cover the improvement projects that need to occur to maintain the locks and dams infrastructure. Part of the reason for lack of funds is extended timelines and drastically increased costs of current projects.

During his presentation, Calhoun also shared a potential solution for increasing funds to cover these new improvement projects. He shared that the industry is willing to pay an increased tax, but also is pushing for improved management of projects to prevent extended timelines and increased costs.

Without improvements to the infrastructure, there will be continued cost of repairs – and the industry’s cost of delays associated with those temporary closures – and at some point, the locks and dams will start failing, causing devastating and costly delays to Ohio’s agriculture industry.

Forum participants went through the Meldahl Lock in Chilo, Ohio, and also heard presentations from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Consolidated Grain & Barge, Inc. and the Central Ohio River Business Association.