Page 27: of Marine News Magazine (June 2005)

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offers a desperately needed solution to our country's need for expanding its arteries for bulk freight movement. One large inland tank barge can remove up to 150 tank trucks from our highways. It can move cargo using less than one tenth the amount of fuel and resultant air pollution produced from a truck on the highway.

Here in Houston, and increasingly across our country, local government is now real- izing that they must identify clear meth- ods for reducing traffic congestion and air pollution, as these areas continue to grow, and existing methods of freight trans- portation are seen as a problem source.

The European Economic Union has real- ized this for several years and has taken measures to encourage development of their waterways. We are sadly behind in this realization. Adding urgency to this message is the fact that we have not seen fit to even maintain this vital national interstate water highway system, and it is in need of significant repair. Our country has been fortunate to have had visionary forefathers that pursued the dream of building a system of waterways that con- tinue to serve this country's expanding needs with little or no modification since completion over 50 years ago! An intrigu- ing question we should ask ourselves is "Could we ever dream of completing the construction of such a waterway project today?" Thanks to the visionaries of the past, we have a system with capacity to handle our needs for several generations to come. We just need to maintain it!

MN: If you could have the federal gov- ernment change one policy, what would it be?

Butler: We should have a national trans- portation policy that would include a pro- vision, similar to those used in Europe, requiring evaluating the feasibility of waterway transportation as a first option for all new projects that would increase load on our rails and highways, before any other method of bulk freight movement could be utilized. In my view, waterways should be as much of a consideration these days as our interstate highway sys- tem. We should consider the same policy and forethought to that used to develop our interstate highway system over 50 years ago. I am not sure that there is any other realistic option to be honest. The cost to all of us, in terms of environmen- tal damage, real estate, efficiency, and tax dollars of continuing to ignore the advan- tages offered from maximizing the use of our existing waterway system, is just plain unacceptable. Before we attempt to expand our land-based systems, a national study of future needs and use of "best mode" should be part of our national agenda.

MN: What are some of the bottlenecks that exist on the system?

Butler: I would like to answer this ques- tion by taking some license with the word "bottlenecks". First, and foremost of the bottlenecks are our locks on the system.

Well over half of them are past their design life, yet continue to serve increas- ing levels of traffic, with decreasing effi- ciency. We attempt to capture the result- ing traffic delays, but my first hand expe- rience tells me we are missing some sig- nificant costs. Maintenance needs contin- ue to escalate as these structures age, and

June, 2005 • MarineNews 27

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