Letter to Jo-Ellen Darcy, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, and Thomas P. Bostick, Commanding General and Chief of Engineers - Regarding Soo Locks Replacement Project

Letter

The Honorable Jo-Ellen Darcy
Assistant Secretary
U.S. Army (Civil Works)
108 Army Pentagon
Washington, DC 20310-0108

Lieutenant General Thomas P. Bostick
Commanding General and Chief of Engineers
441 G Street Northwest
Washington, DC 20314

Dear Secretary Darcy and General Bostick:

Each year, the Great Lakes Navigation System carries about 130 million tons of critical commodities to supply raw materials to our manufacturing sector, power homes and businesses, build roads and bridges, and provide food for people around the world. Over half of the commodities carried through the Great Lakes transit the Soo Locks, and 70 percent of those goods can only get through one lock, the Poe Lock, which is the only lock that can handle the large lake freighters. The Poe Lock was built in 1968, and is in need of major repairs and upgrades. We are pleased the Corps has been pursuing those repairs through its asset renewal plan.

Relying on a single lock at the Soo is a major risk to the nation's manufacturing base and other critical infrastructure. For that reason, Members of Congress worked to ensure that a new replacement Poe-sized lock would be built at the Soo by including a provision in the Water Resources Development Act of 2007 authorizing the Corps to build the new lock with full federal funding. This project has been held up because the Corps believes the benefit-cost ratio (BCR) for this project is below one. We are pleased that you have been responsive to many of our requests about re-evaluating the BCR and have been working since 2012 to assess whether the benefits of the project were accurately examined.

We understand the Corps held a meeting in March 2014 attended by a broad cross-section of interests including lake carriers, the rail industry, upstream and downstream shipping customers (e.g., mining, steel, electric utilities), port authorities, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the Department of Homeland Security. We are pleased the Corps is reaching out to these stakeholders to better understand the availability of alternative transportation options if the Poe Lock were to fail. We understand that one of the major conclusions from the meeting was that an erroneous critical assumption was made in the BCR analysis of the replacement lock. The BCR assumes that rail would be able to handle all of the shipments that transit the Poe. This assumption is incorrect and therefore there is a major flaw in the BCR. In addition to the lack of rail availability, there is a lack of transportation connectivity at delivery end-points which means that even if rail were available for all of the shipments transiting the Soo Locks, some customers would be unable to receive deliveries.

We would like to understand what next steps the Corps is taking in its re-evaluation of the BCR for the Soo Replacement Lock. Specifically:

-How will the information from the March 2014 stakeholder meeting be incorporated into the Corps sensitivity analysis of the Soo Locks?

-What is the timing for completing the sensitivity analysis?

-Given the current BCR for the Soo Locks Replacement project is based on erroneous critical assumptions, what is the schedule for the Corps to conduct a re-evaluation of the BCR? When would that re-evaluation be completed?

-How much funding will the Corps of Engineers set aside in fiscal year 2014 and 2015 to make the corrections to the BCR analysis?

Thank you for taking another look at the true value of the replacement lock at Sault Ste. Marie. Given how critical this project is for the nation's manufacturing and infrastructure, we hope you will appropriately prioritize this project. We look forward to your prompt reply.

Sincerely,

Carl Levin Debbie Stabenow
Tammy Baldwin Dan Coats
Al Franken Amy Klobuchar
Joe Donnelly Rob Portman
Sherrod Brown Charles E. Schumer