Rationale for the Study: Infrastructure Needs

The Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway system is aging and the costs of maintaining the existing marine transportation infrastructure are rising.

• The system was completed in 1959 with the opening of the seven locks in the Montreal/Lake Ontario section of the Seaway, complementing the eight locks of the current Welland Canal that date from 1932.
• The two Soo locks currently operational for commercial navigation purposes, the Poe and the MacArthur, opened in 1968 and 1943, respectively.

While significant levels of maintenance, including system improvements, continue to be implemented on an annual basis – that is, ongoing maintenance projects undertaken by the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation, the Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – the infrastructure needs of the system over the long-term are not well defined.

As the infrastructure ages, it becomes increasingly critical to plan for future operation, maintenance, repair and rehabilitation.

To this end, the GLSLS study will assess the ongoing maintenance and long-term capital requirements to ensure the continuing viability of the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway system as a safe, efficient, reliable and sustainable component of North America’s transportation infrastructure.

The scope of the study is limited to the evaluation of the existing marine transportation infrastructure. It is important to note that the focus of the study is on the optimization of the existing infrastructure based on the system’s current configuration and that the evaluation of major infrastructure modifications, such as an expansion of the Seaway locks or an increase in channel dimensions, are not part of the study.

Work Scope

To meet the objectives of the GLSLS Study, it is necessary to complete both a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the engineering, economic and environmental factors and trends to develop a realistic profile of the state of the existing infrastructure and to evaluate socio-economic conditions and their potential implications for the future operation and maintenance of the system.

The remainder of this section outlines the Study Team tasks and activities for the engineering, economic and environmental aspects of the study.

Engineering Aspects

• Determine the basic condition of the existing infrastructure and rank it relative to other similar facilities and components to provide a system-wide basis for comparison.
• Review historic infrastructure operation and maintenance costs and categorize infrastructure performance factors.
• Undertake analytical engineering reliability modeling for those major infrastructure components identified as most critical in relation to engineering criteria and level of service criteria.
• Project future costs associated with the operation and maintenance based on current infrastructure condition and reliability.
• Evaluate alternative maintenance and rehabilitation scenarios for the existing infrastructure, based on the system’s current configuration.

Economic Aspects

• Compile a primarily qualitative description and analysis of the essential physical, institutional and economic characteristics of the system.
• Review and categorize historic information and data on traffic flows (origin, destination, cargo carried, tonnage, transit time); fleet characteristics (cargo carrying capability and operating cost by vessel type); markets and industries (assess how the system operates from the perspective of shippers and carriers – that is, a logistical tool used by major industry sectors); and transportation rates (cost competitiveness, degree of dependence on the system, level of responsiveness to transportation cost changes and impact of increasing costs, non-cost factors).
• Forecast traffic flows over the long-term for major cargoes currently carried on the system and for potential additional and/or new cargoes that could be moved on the system, based on its current configuration (describe prospects of regional markets and industries, identify opportunities and constraints for intermodal linkages).
• Assess factors that might affect the future capacity of the vessel fleet serving the system, forecasting how the service provided by major carriers may impact the system’s long-term competitiveness.
  
• Evaluate socio-economic benefits and costs for alternative maintenance and rehabilitation scenarios associated with the continuing operation and maintenance of the existing infrastructure over the long-term, based on the system’s current configuration.

Environmental Aspects

• Compile the necessary information to characterize environmental conditions of key resources potentially impacted by navigation-related activities on the system (water quality, water level variations, sediment quality, wetlands, fisheries, species at risk and of special concern).
• Review and assess (qualitatively) the environmental implications of maintenance and rehabilitation scenarios for the existing infrastructure, based on the system’s current configuration, as defined by the engineering and/or economics aspects of the study.
• Provide environmental information on the system as required in support of the work being carried out as part of the engineering and/or economic aspects of the study.
• Identify and define an appropriate methodology for assessing the environmental impacts of future navigation-related activities on the system.