More than $34 million in improvements to the Port of Toledo’s general-cargo docks are about half-funded by an Ohio program that the state Senate proposes eliminating in a budget bill it passed.
The work to install new conveyors, build a new liquid bulk terminal, and particularly to reconstruct deteriorating dock faces built during the 1950s to which Ohio’s Maritime Assistance Program is contributing $17 million is not at risk of disruption.
However, future projects of similar importance could derail and the federal grants those state funds “leverage” would be lost to other states, speakers said during a news conference state Rep. Michele Grim (D., Toledo) held Monday at the National Museum of the Great Lakes.
While a biennial budget bill the Ohio House of Representatives recently passed includes $40 million for the program’s next two years, the Senate version “strips this necessary funding that is crucial to ports obtaining other funding,” Ms. Grim said after noting that $40 million allocated in past years secured $150 million in local, federal, and private matching funds and triggered billions of dollars in private investment.
Ms. Grim pledged to vote against a House resolution to concur with the Senate version, which if it fails will send the conflicting budget bills to conference committee.
“There was strong bipartisan support in the House” for the port funding, Ms. Grim said. “Let’s not abandon it and allow opportunities to pass Ohio by.”
The funding had not been included, however, in the budget Gov. Mike DeWine originated.
Program funds are available to Ohio’s six Lake Erie ports as well as terminals along the Ohio River system, which are served by a combined 736 miles of navigable waterway, Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority officials said. The local port accounts for 15 of the more than 160 individual terminals in Ohio’s lake and river ports.
The state funding “is critical for the rebuilding, repair, and revitalization” of those ports, said Thomas Winston, the port authority’s president.
Joe Cappel, the port authority’s vice president for business development, said shipyards also benefit, with a recent $366,000 project to pave areas around the Toledo Shipyard’s drydocks receiving 50 percent Maritime Assistance Program funding.
Midwest Terminals of Toledo International, the stevedore contractor for the general cargo docks, got 50 percent Maritime Assistance Program funding to buy a modern heavy-lift forklift for $470,000, he said.
A Liebherr mobile harbor crane the port authority obtained for $5.5 million with Maritime Assistance Program help is likely “the largest mobile harbor crane on the Great Lakes,” which gives the Toledo port “a competitive advantage not only over other Great Lakes states, but also the coastal ports,” Mr. Cappel said, and the liquid bulk transfer facility about to be built will further enhance Toledo’s capability.
Reconstruction of the general cargo dock’s faces and on-dock railroad tracks is about 50 percent done, Mark Hall, Midwest Terminals’ general manager, said Monday afternoon. The new surface around the tracks just behind the wharf wall is foot-thick concrete with heavy embedded rail for the railroad.
“This should last for the next 60 years,” Mr. Hall said.
Holly Kemler, a port authority spokesman, said the dock reconstruction should be “mostly done” by year’s end, while the liquid transload facility is about 20 percent built and should be finished by March.
Fred Deichert, Midwest Terminals’ chief financial officer, said direct employment at the docks it operates has grown from 25 to 100 during his company’s nearly 25 years of operations, most notably at Ironville Dock in East Toledo. That dock’s port-sponsored construction, partially funded by earlier state and federal funds, in turn made the adjacent Cleveland-Cliffs iron reduction plant possible, he noted.
John Easterly, chairman of the Ohio state legislative board for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen unit of the Teamsters union, said the robustness of Ohio’s railroad network also depends in part on having strong ports.
Coal, iron ore, and grain delivered or received by 127 ships at Ohio’s Lake Erie ports have accounted for 2.6 million tons of cargo this year through May, Mr. Easterly said, but the bulk terminals involved “struggle with dated infrastructure and need investment to modernize.”
Mr. Cappel said that while the ongoing Port of Toledo construction is vital, it’s not comprehensive.
“We have warehouses to replace. We still have a long list of projects at our port and at all of Ohio’s ports that need to be done,” Mr. Cappel said.
And Mr. Deichert said keeping Ohio ports vital for future projects most notably involving wind, solar, and hydrogen energy development is important.
“A robust port complex is essential to our region” and applications for federal funding of new projects has recently been submitted, he said.
Still, without the state support, “It is likely we will not be awarded future federal grants,” Mr. Deichert said.
First Published June 19, 2023, 9:43 p.m.
