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Monetarism Turned U.S. Locks, Dams Into Museum-Pieces

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A key part of the Great Lakes states industrial productivity at peak, was the extensive inland waterways system, whose locks, dams and other navigational and flood control installations were done under the Army Corps of Engineers districts for the Great Lakes Basin, the Ohio, Missouri and Mississippi Systems, and St. Lawrence Seaway. Iron ore, for example, goes from the shores of Lake Superior, eastward to manufacturing sites. On Jan. 20, the last vessel of the 2010 shipping season (until reopening, come Spring) went through the Soo Locks (Sault Ste. Marie), with iron ore from Silver Bay, bound for Cleveland.

Lyndon LaRouche said today in his webcast, "In practice, the success of the United States’ economy has always lain, chiefly, in the production of those public works through which the increase of the physical productivity of the nation is effected, as it is measurable per capita and per square kilometer of territory."

Now, large parts of this entire navigation system serving all central North America are so aged and worn, they are literally ’an accident waiting to happen.’ The Commander of the Pittsburgh USACE District summed it up earlier this month: "Things could snap at any moment—that’s what keeps you up at night." Lock walls, gates and cables, are falling down (summarized below.) His district has lock fixtures 100 years old.

Modernizing all this navigational and flood management infrastructure is a priority in order to rev up the industrial capacity for manufacturing inputs to NAWAPA. The engineering sections of the relevant Corps divisions have all the specifications required to start work "overnight," just as soon as the Glass-Steagall financial reorganization is underway, and contracts and grants get going. No new funding channels are even required in this case. There are pre-existing USACE budget mechanisms.

This just makes clear that the obstacle is not the extensive decrepitude of the waterways, but allowing the monetarist thinking to prevail, that caused the disintegration to go on in the first place.

The monetarist approach says that internal improvements are ’too expensive,’ and secondly, they are ’harmful’ to the environment. This is the voice of British imperialist genocide speaking. David Conrad, spokesmen on water resources for the National Wildlife Federation, said recently, "The environmental impact to the rivers involved [in locks and dams] has been quite devastating over a long period of time."

Congressmen are skirmishing to find some funding for their particular dangerous lock and dam, including bonehead ideas, given the epic crash. For example, Rep. Tim Murphy (R) said the Western Pennsylvania delegation is activating for funding, and he thinks that $3.7 trillion in Federal revenue from off-shore drilling could help rebuild locks, dams, highways and bridges.

The Army Corps itself is under a crazed order to conduct an "asset management" survey of all its properties—84 percent of which relate to water, to determine relative "risk" and probability of lock failure, and beg for funds in the FY 2013 budget.

The following are features of the situation.

At the 62 navigation sites along the Mississippi River and Illinois Waterway system, most of locks are more than 50 years old, beyond their design life. Within 10 years, 77 percent of them will exceed their service life.

Breakdown is an ever-present threat. On the Missouri River earlier this Winter, an 100-ft-long steel gate fell down at Lock and Dam 25, near Winfield, MO, chain broke, that was used to raise and lower it. The aging chains in use, were supposed to be replaced under some stimulus act (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) funding, which was redeployed to some other critical maintenance.

In the Northwest, worn locks and dams on the Snake River and two more on the Columbia River, are fortunately in prolonged (14 week) shutdown, for refurbishing, Otherwise, their aged condition—up to 53 years old, guaranteed emergency stoppages. Funding for this is just episodic, through the stimulus act.

On the Ohio System, in January, 2010, a 51-year old section of a lock near Greenup, broke, for the second time in four months.

In the Pittsburgh District, are some of most antiquated locks in the nation, still in use. On the Lower Monongahela, Locks and Dam 4 at Charleroi are 100 years old; Locks and Dam 3 at Elizabeth, 75 years old; and there are two more installations, one half refurbished. The Lower Mon rehab project, started in 1994, was to take 12 years. At the current rate of work and funding, it would take 40 years; but it’s not a linear projection. It’s now or never for the nation.