Acoe News

Marine News showcases the best of North America’s 2017 workboat deliveries. There is something for everyone. Notwithstanding the lingering offshore energy downturn, there were plenty of bright spots for North American shipyards in 2017. If a hull was delivered in 2017, we took a look at it, with several areas as a focus for inclusion into this edition. For starters, it is always exciting when a domestic yard delivers a vessel – or multiple vessels, for that matter – to foreign buyers. We can compete in a foreign arena; on price, quality and on-time delivery. This year was no different. No less important is the environmental footprint of a vessel, and there was plenty to report on from that angle in the past 12 months. The domestic waterfront is indeed getting greener and cleaner.

Leland, Mich., on the shores of Lake Michigan, is one of the jewel communities of the state’s Northern Lower Peninsula. Originally developed in the 1800s as a port for the iron mining and lumber industries in the area, which used Lake Michigan as a water route to the Port of Chicago, Leland was an important cog in the Michigan economy. Over the past century, Leland’s role along Lake Michigan changed, and it became a summer boating Mecca and a harbor of refuge during inclement weather for boaters on Lake Michigan.

For 16 years, the National Quality Steering Committee has used three measures to track overall trends in safety and environmental protection. While not all-encompassing, the measures are considered to be useful indicators of towing industry trends. Crew fatalities per 100,000 towing industry workers. Gallons of oil spilled from tank barges per million gallons transported. The number of vessel casualties (overall or by incident severity). This report contains towing industry data and measures for calendar years 1994 to 2015.

On Thursday, May 19, 2016, the Port of Palm Beach Board of Commissioners agreed to exclude funding for a proposed U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Lake Worth Inlet navigational improvement project from the port’s Master Plan Update. The ACOE project, along with the economic and environmental backup that accompanied the plan, was published for the port’s review in 2005. As global, regional and state markets; the port’s tenant composition; and the environmental and recreational dynamics surrounding the port have changed, the port’s missions and goals continue to evolve. In discussing the 10-year time span between the study and the Thursday evening decision…

The Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) Board today voted to approve to execute a Project Partnering Agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE) and MassDOT to start the Boston Harbor Dredging Project. A signed agreement allows the ACOE to bid contracts for construction on a Confined Aquatic Disposal cell (CAD cell), which is needed for the maintenance dredging of the Inner Harbor Main Ship Channel. Maintenance dredging will restore the inner harbor to 40 feet and is the first phase of the larger dredging project. Without maintenance dredging, the harbor will continue to silt, leading to increased transit times, economic inefficiencies, and navigational safety concerns.

The new HYPACK feature allows U.S.-based users to quickly obtain the most recent charts provided by NOAA and the USACE at no additional charge. U.S.-based users who have an Internet connection will be able to download the charts from the USACE and NOAA web-map servers with the click of a button. Both agencies have made their charts available for download, and HYPACK has made it easy to ensure users have the latest chart data. Step One: Update ENC Catalog: HYPACK downloads the latest chart catalogs over the Internet from the NOAA and USACE map servers.

Maritrans Operating Company L.P. said it believes the benefits of deepening the Delaware River to 45 ft. have been severely misstated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE). The ACOE report, released in December 2002, concluded that the benefits to cost ratio of the deepening project was 1.18 to 1. The report states that the major benefit of this project is in the form of reduced lightering expenses for refineries along the Delaware River. Maritrans Operating Company L.P., which performs a very high percentage of all lightering for area refineries, reports that the ACOE understated the actual volume of lightering by approximately 25 percent and under-reported the number of hours spent lightering by approximately 35 percent.