Page 36: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (June 2006)

36 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News

By R. Barry Palmer, President and CEO,

Waterways Council, Inc.

Just last month, House Appropriators on Capitol Hill overwhelmingly approved spending nearly $415m in fis- cal year 2007 to complete critical Inland

Waterway Trust Fund financed lock and dam projects on the Nation's inland waterways system. This action under- scores and improves upon President

Bush's highest-ever request in FY 2007 for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Civil Works program. These actions by the Administration and the Committee continue to demonstrate the important contributions of America's inland navi- gation system to the nation's economy.

The commitment of Energy & Water

Development Subcommittee Chairman

David Hobson to the efficient funding and prompt completion of the economi- cally important inland navigation proj- ects of the Army Corps of Engineers should be commended. The work of

Ranking Minority Member Pete

Visclosky and the Subcommittee mem- bers, and the efforts of Appropriations

Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis and

Committee Ranking Minority Member

David Obey, who continue to provide strong, supportive leadership, should also be recognized.

Particularly during wartime the appro- priations process creates difficult choic- es, but the action of the Committee sub- stantiates the goal of keeping the Nation strong and economically competitive.

Waterways Council advocates for the modernization of priority Inland

Waterway Trust Fund financed projects and urges funding at the highest levels possible, in order for the benefits of lock and dam investments to be fully real- ized. And while there are positive trends on the construction general side of waterways infrastructure work, there is much work that lies ahead on funding

Operations and Maintenance (O&M) needs on the system.

In the 1990s an increasing amount of maintenance on the system was deferred. That deferred maintenance became unfunded maintenance and the aging infrastructure, combined with a growing O&M backlog, has resulted over the last five years in an average of 30 unscheduled shutdowns at lock sites per year. Tight O&M funding means maintenance and repair is done on that "fix-as-fail" basis, while the list of major rehabilitations waiting for funding grows. This "fix-as-fail" policy is not good for the waterways industry, and it is not good for the Nation.

One recent example, the Greenup lock on the Ohio River was originally sched- uled to close for 18 days in 2003 for rou- tine maintenance, but took eight weeks to repair, forcing the use of the auxiliary lock chamber which more than doubled tows' processing times. The total delay during that outage was more than 27,000 hours, or the equivalent of delays associated with six years of normal operations. Following that closure, a survey was conducted of shippers and 2006WorldYearbook2006WorldYearbook2006WorldYearbook2006W

The NYS Thruway

Authority/Canal Corporation is seeking to retain a qualified

Naval Architecture/Engineering firm to provide design services for the design of a "Hopper

Configuration" Container

Transport Barge.

Interested firms should contact Peter Weisbecker at (518) 471-5375 for a more complete description of the requirements.

FIRE DEPARTMENT

CITY OF NEW YORK

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION AND EXPRESSIONS

OF INTEREST FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF FAST

RESPONSE FIREBOATS

The Fire Department of the City of New York is seek- ing informational proposals from qualified shipyards for the construction of two (2) fast response fireboats.

The new 140 foot fireboats are designed, by Robert

Allan Ltd., to specifically address the firefighting and rescue needs of the greater New York harbor. The fireboats are designed for a response speed of 17.4 knots, with a low-wake, 12 knot cruising speed. The pumping system is configured for marine fire incident response, and to support land-based firefighters with a 50,000 gpm total pumping capacity.

A copy of the RFI may be obtained by writing to the

NYC Fire Department 9 MetroTech Center, Room 5W13K,

Brooklyn, NY, 11201-5884

Att: M. Budinska (718) 999-1234, or on line at http://www.nyc.gov/fdny at "Contracting

Opportunities" link. Proposals are due by the close of business on July 13, 2006.

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Waterways System Must Remain a Priority

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