According to the Tribune Review, an aging barge fleet coupled with high scrap steel pricing and demand from the biodiesel and ethanol industries has launched a barge-building boom, the likes of which hasn't been seen since the 1970s, industry experts say. Brownsville Marine Products, LLC, of Fayette County, hopes to cash in on the construction boom, and is building barges as it can, carrying on a tradition of barge building on that stretch of the Monongahela River that began with the old Hillman Barge Co. in 1938. Nationally, a fleet of more than 27,000 barges moves over 800 million tons a year of raw materials and finished goods over the 25,000-mile inland waterway system, adding about $5 billion annually to the U.S. economy, according to the trade group.
