Charleston ports officials look to barges as a way to reduce truck traffic on local highways
David Wren — The Post and Courier
Barges will one day move cargo between Wando Welch Terminal and a new rail yard in North Charleston under a plan the State Ports Authority is developing to help reduce truck traffic on local highways.
The authority has applied to the federal Department of Transportation for a marine highway designation that would let barges haul hundreds of cargo boxes at a time along the Wando and Cooper rivers. The maritime agency expects to know by the end of this year whether it has been approved for that designation.
If approved, the SPA would be eligible for federal grants that could help pay for the long-range proposal, which doesn't yet have a price tag or completion date.
"This is literally a white-board situation," said Jim Newsome, the SPA's president and CEO, referring to the project's nascent status. "We know it's physically doable. We're going to have to do it."
SPA officials say congestion along Interstates 26 and 526 and other area roadways combined with the trucking industry's aging workforce means alternatives to highway transportation must be found.
"The average age of a trucker is 54, and nobody's kids want to be in trucking any more," said Barbara Melvin, the SPA's vice president of operations and terminals. "It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that we can't keep doing what we're doing."
Under the proposal, import cargo would be taken off ships and moved to the terminal's container yard before being placed on barges and hauled to a site near an intermodal rail yard being built by Palmetto Railways. Trains would then transport the freight. Export cargo would follow the reverse route. Each barge would carry between 500 and 1,000 metal cargo boxes.
Moving cargo by river would eliminate the need for many of the trucks that would otherwise have to take containers on over-the-road trips between the Mount Pleasant terminal and the rail yard.
Palmetto Railways, a division of the state's Commerce Department, plans to open the $130 million rail yard in 2019. It will be served by CSX Corp. and Norfolk Southern railroads, which already move about 25 percent of all cargo going to and from the Port of Charleston.
The barge proposal is expected to gain support from federal transportation officials who are paying more attention in recent years to maritime infrastructure, Newsome said, adding that Transportation Secretary Elain Chao — the former chair of the Federal Maritime Commission — is making port facilities one of her agency's top priorities.
The project also fits new federal grant guidelines that require applicants to put up some of their own money to fund initiatives rather than rely solely on federal dollars. The SPA historically has leveraged its own money and state funds to supplement federal grants.
"The implication is you better have more than 50 percent in the game or you're not going to qualify," Newsome said. "The projects we're doing, we have a lot of skin in the game."
The plan also lines up with federal directives that grants be used for projects that support a larger initiative rather than stand-alone ventures, according to Melvin.
"They like to see how projects fit into an entire network," she said, adding the barges would complement other port activities, such as construction of a new container terminal on the former Navy Base and deepening Charleston Harbor.
"We have a lot of network investment going on," Melvin said. "All of it has to fit together for the investment to make sense."
The federal marine highway program was established in 2007 to alleviate traffic and wear on the nation's highways. It includes more than 29,000 nautical miles of waterways including rivers, bays, channels and the Great Lakes.
