by Guest » March 4, 2015, 6:28 pm
USS used to have an integrated mill in South Chucago until it was shut down in 1984 and subsequently dismantled. Is year-round shipping justified - yes. For the tankers that operate from Sarnia to Nanticoke, the customers think that year-round winter shipping is worth the effort and it keeps extra tanker-trailers units off Ontario roads. The trucking industry has great difficulty in getting good, qualified drivers. A lot of truck drivers are from India and an accident on the Burlington Bridge in Hamilton in August shows what poor drivers some of them are.
The only reason that the Anderson went to Conneaut in February is that a customer needed to move cargo. Great Lakes Fleet wasn't 'showing off' or being 'macho', they are in an industry where you transport cargo based on customer needs. There is no way anyone could have known that the ice conditions were so severe before hand when they struggled to enter Conneaut. Roger Blough had a similar problem in February 1979, and it took the polar-class USCG icebreaker Westwind several days to get through the ice pressure ridges. The USCG really needs to have built two polar-class icebreakers for the Great Lakes, or else purchase two from Finland, like they were planning to do in the 70s.
And that brings me to the next point.
For the past twenty years, winters on the Great Lakes, except for a couple of times, have been very mild when compared to the past. The winter of 2011-12 had ice on the lakes that were in the single digits. No way did anyone expect the winter to be so severe in 2013-14. With climate change it was thought that severe winters would be a thing of the past. A severe winter is usually followed by a mild one the following winter. Back-to-back severe winters on the Great Lakes have not been seen since 1976/77, 1977/78 and 1978/79.
USS used to have an integrated mill in South Chucago until it was shut down in 1984 and subsequently dismantled. Is year-round shipping justified - yes. For the tankers that operate from Sarnia to Nanticoke, the customers think that year-round winter shipping is worth the effort and it keeps extra tanker-trailers units off Ontario roads. The trucking industry has great difficulty in getting good, qualified drivers. A lot of truck drivers are from India and an accident on the Burlington Bridge in Hamilton in August shows what poor drivers some of them are.
The only reason that the Anderson went to Conneaut in February is that a customer needed to move cargo. Great Lakes Fleet wasn't 'showing off' or being 'macho', they are in an industry where you transport cargo based on customer needs. There is no way anyone could have known that the ice conditions were so severe before hand when they struggled to enter Conneaut. Roger Blough had a similar problem in February 1979, and it took the polar-class USCG icebreaker Westwind several days to get through the ice pressure ridges. The USCG really needs to have built two polar-class icebreakers for the Great Lakes, or else purchase two from Finland, like they were planning to do in the 70s.
And that brings me to the next point.
For the past twenty years, winters on the Great Lakes, except for a couple of times, have been very mild when compared to the past. The winter of 2011-12 had ice on the lakes that were in the single digits. No way did anyone expect the winter to be so severe in 2013-14. With climate change it was thought that severe winters would be a thing of the past. A severe winter is usually followed by a mild one the following winter. Back-to-back severe winters on the Great Lakes have not been seen since 1976/77, 1977/78 and 1978/79.