Page 19: of Marine News Magazine (July 2018)

18 20

built about 5,500 feet or so of track so ment in or building new equipment

What about the Jones Act? It’s al- ways in play on domestic wind we have this double loop. We can land because they can see your return. farm projects. a unit train on the port, pull it off, and But we think with a combination move it out. That is one of the challenges of of a big enough barge and some the project. We’ve got some ideas, modifications to a barge and put-

Talk a little bit about steel. There’s we’re creative and we think we can ting a big enough crane on it, we a lot worry about tariffs and other overcome. Remember, this is for a can get the job done and not have market conditions at moment.

pilot. So whatever you do for a pi- to bring in European equipment or,

We handle a lot of steel. Last year, lot, your costs are going to be high, essentially import equipment which we were probably just under half a but then as you scale up, you get the we can’t do under Jones Act, so we million tons – it’s all from Europe – marine contractors bringing equip- work around it. so we were, of course, very alarmed by the potential for tariffs on European- made steel. If we were to see the 25% tariff on steel from Europe or countries where we see our imports, it wouldn’t be good for us. It would be disruptive to the customers who depend on it.

It’s labor-intensive handling that steel, supporting a lot of jobs in manufac- turing facilities in this area. So it’s a concern. No question about it.

The wind farm business, if you be- lieve local stakeholders, is about to explode. What’s your take for the port on that?

We’re in the lead on that, actually.

For more than 10 years or so, there has been a group here in Cleveland that we are part of – it’s called LEED-

Co – Lake Erie Energy Development

Corporation, that has been trying to move toward a pilot offshore Cleve- land. We’re really close to getting it built. And we believe it will. We want

Cleveland to be at the forefront on the Great Lakes. It would be the