Seaway Strike Update
End of day Oct. 27 – No settlement reached; still at impasse. Talks to continue.
Ship Junkies – Lakes, Locks & Rivers (LL&R)
Canadian Seaway strike could not have come at a worse time, Milwaukee port officials say
Milwaukee, WI – A labor dispute between Canadian port workers and the Canadian government has concerned officials at Port Milwaukee and area businesses that rely on ships coming in and out of the St. Lawrence Seaway.
“If you look at it in terms of economic impact worldwide, we’d be like the third largest economy in the world,” said Jackie Carter, director of Port Milwaukee. “There’s a great responsibility with that. Making sure that those goods are moving efficiently, that that lane is clear, that they can move fast, that it’s reliable; I think this strike really has cast some doubt on our region and the ability to meet the needs of the vessel owners.”
The St. Lawrence Seaway is a series of canals, dams and locks that connects the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a vital economic artery for each state and city that does business on the Great Lakes.
The timing could not have been worse for Wisconsin as growers and companies are in their harvesting season. Carter said 34% of international vessels come in the final quarter of the year.
“If there’s grain that needs to be moved, we can’t get it out through the seaway,” Carter said adding the port has been in contact with its tenants to learn about how this is impacting them directly.
So far, the impact has been “minimal,” Carter said. Businesses were able to make adjustments before the strike started to either cancel shipments or find another way to move products.
“In order to get international vessels inland, that seaway needs to be open. With that closure and that traffic being stuck and not able to move, we’re not able to get the international products from our region out to international markets, and we’re also not able to get imports in,” Carter said. “It forces businesses in our region to seek alternative means to move their goods. That often means the movement is going to be more costly but it also puts us at risk where we’re competing with areas like coastal ports… then being able to get those products from the coast on trucks, on rail, you’re talking about increased emissions, you’re talking about increased costs to the growers and the producers. All of those things are concerning to us.”
Great Lakes shipping officials urge the Canadian government to end the strike ‘as quickly as possible’
But Wisconsin and the rest of the states on the American side, they’re stuck sitting in the bleachers while the workers and the Canadian government sit at the negotiating table.
Carter said port officials have been communicating “almost daily” with the Canadian government and was surprised it let the strike go on for a week before planning to negotiate on Friday. The conversations between the Canadians and U.S. “have gone from concerning to frustrating.”
“There does not appear to be much urgency on their part,” Carter said. “That’s concerning for us as well. The fact that we have a binational system that cannot operate and we are losing time, losing days… we don’t know what the exact sticking points are because they’re not able to tell us that kind of detail.”
But not every industry can simply ship products through a different route. The cruise industry, which has found life in the Great Lakes in recent years, is also facing a “threat to … growth” as a result of the strike. Carter said officials are “urging the Canadian government to end this as quickly as possible.”
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Port leaders call for action to end Canadian union’s strike against St. Lawrence Seaway
Toledo, OH – Officials from the ports of Toledo and Monroe have called for concerted efforts to resolve a strike that has shut down Canada’s St. Lawrence Seaway locks since Sunday.
The walkout by about 360 workers represented by Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector union, affects 13 canal locks between Lake Erie and Montreal, including the eight-lock Welland Canal connecting lakes Erie and Ontario and five locks along the St. Lawrence River in and above Montreal.
“The grievance of 300 workers, though important, shouldn’t outweigh the well-being of the third largest economy in the world,” Paul C. LaMarre III, president of the American Great Lakes Port Association and director of the Port of Monroe, wrote in a letter to Canada’s ministers of transport and labor.
“This unprecedented closure of the St. Lawrence Seaway is occurring [during] the most challenged geopolitical atmosphere that has existed in decades,” Mr. LaMarre continued, “and poses an incalculable risk to the national security and defense capabilities of both of our nations.”
Mr. LaMarre urged Minister of Transport Pablo Rodriguez and Minister of Labor Seamus O’Regan to “place binational security before politics” and intervene immediately to reopen the canals. “Anything else would be an insult to national sovereignty,” he concluded.
The port of Toledo handled 3,006,738 tons of cargo that transited the Seaway last year, and through September of 2023, 1,377,024 tons traveled to or from Toledo via that waterway.
“We’re trying to assess what that means for us locally,” Thomas Winston, president of the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority, told that agency’s board of directors Thursday morning about the Canadian strike.
“With the harvest season upon us, and grain shipments from the Port of Toledo ready to be exported into international waters to feed the world, we urge you to help resolve this conflict quickly to prevent both immediate and long-lasting impacts on not only the Port of Toledo, but the entire global economy,” Mr. Winston wrote in a letter sent later Thursday to the same Canadian ministers.
“If the strike is to continue for much longer we could have significant impact to vital shipments heading into the perilous winter season,” U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) said Friday afternoon. “I support the workers fighting for fair pay and work conditions and hope there is a quick resolution that benefits all.”
Mr. Winston told the port directors about 100 ships were being delayed, either trying to get into the Great Lakes or trying to leave, by the strike. That potentially included a ship bringing imported grain to Toledo “and perhaps some other commodities,” Mr. Winston told the board.
The Toledo port on Friday then issued a statement noting the Seaway’s central role in its overseas cargo movements. “This situation has affected all Great Lakes ports by closing access to international waters,” Mr. Winston said.
Two oceangoing freighters, the motor vessels Federal Oshima and Chestnut, were berthed for loading Friday afternoon at The Andersons grain elevators along the Maumee River just south of downtown Toledo.
Joe Cappel, the port authority’s vice president for business development, said the two ships had entered the Great Lakes before the strike, and their outbound voyages could be delayed if the Seaway locks remain closed.
“We’re hopeful they can hammer this out over the weekend and be back to normal next week,” Mr. Cappel said. “…This needs to be treated with more urgency.”
A spokesman for The Andersons did not respond to an inquiry Friday afternoon.
Mr. Cappel said that besides grain, the canal-lock lockdown threatens the Toledo deliveries two to three times per month of aluminum smelted in eastern Canada that is then warehoused and distributed at the local port as part of its status as a London Metals Exchange delivery point.
The Toledo port also handles overseas shipments of steel, titanium, and other metals; sugar; heavy machinery; and other cargoes.
The St. Lawrence Seaway and Great Lakes are part of a system of locks, canals, rivers, and lakes that stretches more than 2,300 miles from the Atlantic Ocean to the western tip of Lake Superior in Minnesota and Wisconsin. It carried over $12 billion, or nearly $17 billion Canadian, worth of cargo last year.
Ships that travel it include oceangoing “salties” and “lakers” that stick to the lakes, with laker users of the affected locks primarily being Canadian-flag vessels traveling to Lake Ontario ports, Montreal, or grain transloading ports in the lower St. Lawrence.
It’s the first time that a strike has shut down the vital shipping artery since 1968. Before the union walked out early Sunday, it said they were still “1,000 nautical miles apart on wages” despite several months of negotiations.
The strike was in its third day Tuesday when the Canadian government ordered both sides to return Friday to the bargaining table with a federal mediator in Toronto. U.S. officials are pushing the Canadian government and the Seaway corporation for a settlement.
“We have grain that feeds the world that’s not moving. We have salt that goes on winter roads for safety that’s not moving. We have iron ore for steelmaking that’s not moving,” said Jason Card, spokesman for the binational Chamber of Marine Commerce in Ottawa.
Management has asked the Canadian government to invoke a law to let ships carrying grain transit the system, but so far it has declined to intervene.
Jean Aubry-Morin, vice president of external relations for Seaway management, said Thursday that they’re disappointed the talks have been dragging on.
“We go to Toronto with the hope that this will change and that we can move forward and we can reach a fair and reasonable agreement,” he added.
While Unifor recently won big increases from automakers, Mr. Aubry-Morin said the management company is a nonprofit corporation that doesn’t have the means of the automobile industry.
Union officials did not respond to messages seeking comment but said in a statement, “Unifor will comply with the call to mediation and will continue to support our members on the picket line while talks take place.”
Mr. Aubry-Morin said management knows of around 115 vessels in the St. Lawrence River and on Lake Ontario that are stalled. He said they didn’t have figures for how many ships at sea might still be headed for the Seaway and the Great Lakes. But he put the total economic impact of the shutdown at $110 million, $153 million Canadian, per day.
The website MarineTraffic.com on Thursday showed numerous oceangoing ships were still inside the system. A major bottleneck is the closed Welland Canal in Ontario. Around 25 ships — salties and lakers — were anchored outside the Lake Ontario and Lake Erie entrances.
A U.S. Navy warship, the littoral combat ship USS Marinette, was supposed to leave Cleveland on Lake Erie on Monday, but remains stuck.
Other stranded ships included five at the major grain port of Thunder Bay, Ont., on Lake Superior and two docked on the Detroit River between Lakes Huron and Erie. They won’t be able to get past Lake Erie until the Seaway reopens.
Shipments within the four Great Lakes from Superior to Erie, such as iron ore and coal, are not affected.
John Jamian, director of operations for the Port of Detroit, said the strike has already affected eight ships that were bound for Detroit, ships carrying steel coils and slab steel for the auto industry and cement for the construction industry. And he said the number could grow.
“Bear in mind each one of those ships holds a lot of tonnage. Those ships are not coming into the system,” Mr. Jamian said. “I know one is still in Europe with cargo and destined for Detroit. She’s in a holding pattern.”
Toledo Blade. Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
Saildrone’s autonomous vessels reach 1 million nautical miles
MILWAUKEE, WI – An autonomous quiet research vessel called Saildrone just set a new milestone. The fleet of these surface vessels has traveled 1 million nautical miles at sea.
“Over 32,000 days, so that’s equal to over 89 years and two and a half trips to the earth to the moon and back,” Saildrone Product VP Kim Sparling said. “So we’re really excited to see our fleet growing and getting even greater global coverage.”
Saildrones are one way we can better research what’s happening with our waters.
“Saildrones are uncrewed surface vehicles. They’re instrumented with a bunch of different sensors to collect data about the ocean,” Sparling said. “We think this is really important because the oceans drive a lot of our climate or weather, our food sources. And using uncrewed surface vehicles for collecting this sort of data frees up crude assets to do more valuable work.”
This summer, one vessel sailed the Great Lakes for data on the fish population, but it can be used for much more.
“We work with a bunch of different government entities including NOAA USGS, that’s what brought us to the Great Lakes,” Sparling said. “We hope to continue on that work. But then we’re also expanding into other use cases. So maritime security, climate monitoring, fish stock assessment.”
Several Saildrones are out at any given time gathering data on oceans and lakes.
“This year, we saw the most number of drones that we’ve ever had out. So that’s upwards of 60 to 100 at a time. But, you know, it changes and we hope to see that number growing as well,” Sparling said.
Some of those were able to gather data in the eye of Hurricane Fiona last year.
“Storm intensification has a huge impact to humans along the coast and to property values and everything like that,” Sparling said. “So the more data we can collect from sale drones, and other assets, the better understanding we have about how those storms build, and so we’re very happy to be involved in that research.”
WPBN/WGTU
Watch the video report here: https://upnorthlive.com/news/local/saildrones-autonomous-vessels-reach-1-million-nautical-miles-advancing-ocean-research-and-climate-monitoring
