- The source – Texas Transportation Institute, “A Modal Comparison of Domestic Freight Transportation Effects on the General Public: 2001-2009″ – was funded by the National Waterways Foundation and the report is full of biases that favor inland navigation.

- Barges are not the most fuel efficient mode of transportation, the unit grain train gets 640 ton-miles per gallon. And, barges must travel much longer distances because rivers do not run in straight lines. So, trains and trucks can arrive at a destination much faster. The time in transit also impacts fuel efficiency and when that is taken into account, barges only get 417-443 miles to the gallon, less efficient than trains by your estimate. Check out http://www.extension.iastate.edu/grain/topics/estimatesoftotalfuelconsumption.htm.

- I appreciate the barge industry concern with greenhouse gas emissions, but carbon dioxide is not the only environmental threat. Below is a list of some of the other environmental problems created by inland waterway navigation.

Barges facilitate and promote the establishment of invasive species.
- The Great Lakes spends over $200 million annually on invasive species removal and mitigation thanks to inland transportation (www.glc.org).
- The dams on the river create ideal habitat for Asian carp because they limit water discharge variability (Michael Hoff, et al. Management Implications from a Stock-Recruitment Model for Bighead Carp in Portions of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers)

Dams increase sedimentation.
- The dams slow down water on the river, causing sediment to drop out of the water column, reducing aquatic habitat variability and smothering benthic organisms like the many threatened and endangered mussels in the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers.
- As sedimentation builds up, the water outside the navigation channel becomes shallower, eventually creating mudflats and impacting recreation along the river.
- Much of this sediment is fine silts, and when tows move through the silt is stirred up, limiting viability for fish and reducing sunlight plants need for photosynthesis.

River training structures increase flooding
- weirs, dikes and dams cause water levels to increase to facilitate navigation. But, during a flood they cause water stage to increase even higher. Exacerbating the flood, causing an increase in property damage and loss of life.

Dams reduce water flow variability
- Many native species depend on the river’s seasonal fluctuations for their life cycle, but the dams prevent these fluctuations. This makes it harder for native species to live and reproduce, while invasives (like Asian carp) become more successful.

Thank you for the opportunity to respond.

Olivia Dorothy
Regional Conservation Coordinator – Upper Mississippi River
Izaak Walton League of America
217-390-3658
odorothy@iwla.org

April 29, 2012

TO: Editor, Rock River Times
FR: Debra Colbert, Waterways Council, Inc.
RE: Article refutation

I was dismayed to find your article (April 18), “Bill would eliminate navigation contributions toward inland waterway infrastructure,” that is based upon an e-mail from Olivia Dorothy, regional conservation coordinator for the Upper Mississippi River Initiative, Izaak Walton League of America. Ms. Dorothy is poorly informed in her memo about the inland waterways industry and she incorrectly attempts to refute the value of this system. The FACTS about the value of this system to the nation are included in a recent research study conducted by the Texas Transportation Institute, “A Modal Comparison of Domestic Freight Transportation Effects on the General Public: 2001-2009.” (attached).

These are the facts:

• One standard 15-barge river tow has the same capacity as 1,050 trucks and 216 rail cars pulled by six locomotives. Think of the impact on your daily commute home today if there were no barges to move our critical commodities.

• Barges can now move a ton of cargo 616 miles with a single gallon of fuel, while trains can travel 476 and trucks 150 ton-miles per gallon. This mode is the most fuel-efficient going today.

• This is also the safest mode: after adjusting for the differences in quantity of cargo moved by each mode, for each member of the public injured in a barge accident, 95.3 are injured in rail accidents and 1,609.6 are injured in truck accidents. For fatalities, the rates are 132 trucking fatalities and 18.1 rail fatalities for every barge related fatality. .

• Inland waterways transport is the most environmentally-friendly mode and generates fewer emissions of particulate matter, hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and nitrous oxide than rail or truck on a per ton mile moved basis.

The Rock River Times claims it is the “voice of the community,” but to publish this kind of article without the benefit of the other research and fact-based side to inject balance is not offering much value to your readers. And if our nation’s waterways and its infrastructure were gone, your community’s voice would be drowned out by traffic congestion, stymied by poor air quality, and lost to fewer jobs.

Thank you.