St. Lawrence Seaway Opens For Shipping Season

The St. Lawrence Seaway, which connects the Canadian-U.S. Great Lakes system to the Atlantic ocean, has reopened with the first ship of the 2000 season passing through this week, according to the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corp. said.

Although low water levels in the Great Lakes Basin have shippers worried they may have to lighten loads, those concerns will not likely affect Seaway commerce until late in the summer, if at all, corporation president Guy Veronneau said.

The corporation reported that the 1999 navigation season was average. Overall cargo through the Montreal/Lake Ontario and Welland Canal sections reached 3.2 million tons less than in 1998.