Saginaw River – Commercial Shipping Season Report – 2020
By Todd Shorkey
With the best season on record
since 2008, the 2020 commercial shipping season on the Saginaw River is in the
books. Traffic numbers have now
increased for the fourth consecutive year, surpassing last season’s
totals. The number of commercial vessel
passages for 2020 were the highest they have been since the 2008 season,
climbing over the 200 mark for the first time since that year. It is important to note however, that without
the record number of wind turbine blade deliveries that came into the Saginaw River
this season, the 2020 season would have had the exact same number of commercial
deliveries as the 2019 season. It is still exciting to see the improvement,
especially after a year rocked by a global pandemic, boats in extended layup,
and lower numbers realized in other parts of the industry. Hard work continues to be put in by leaders
of the industry, not only here on the Saginaw River locally, but across the
Great Lakes, working improve infrastructure and product diversity, which allows
for more opportunities to utilize maritime assets to move product, cheaper and
more efficiently than other modes of transportation. The results of these efforts are showing
dividends, and it is still my hope that the gains we are now seeing, foreshadow
even better things to come in the future.
The following is a look back on the 2020 commercial shipping season here
on the Saginaw River, utilizing the information and data I have collected
during this time period.
The 2020 season officially started on March 18th, with the arrival of the tug Spartan and her tank barge, Spartan II. The pair brought in a cargo of Calcium Chloride from the Occidental Chemical Corporation, located in Ludington, Michigan, delivering it at Port Fisher in Bay City. The season ended when the steamer Alpena arrived on January 8, 2021 to unload a cargo of powdered cement at the Lafarge Cement Dock in Essexville. The 2020 season on the Saginaw River lasted for a total of 297 days. This was 19 days longer than in 2019. The start of the 2020 season was 22 days earlier than in 2019, with the end of the season two days earlier than in 2019.
For the 2020 commercial shipping season, there were a grand total of 202 commercial vessel passages on the Saginaw River, representing an increase of 21 more passages than the 2019 season. These passages were made by 45 different vessels, representing 18 different vessel management companies. Both were increases, as there were 37 unique vessels and 15 companies in 2019.
Looking at other numbers from the 2020 season, deliveries were made to a total of 17 individual docks along the banks of the Saginaw River. These were the same 17 that had received cargo in 2019. The dock seeing the most vessel traffic in 2020 was the Port Fisher/Bay Aggregates Dock in Bay City, with 45 vessel deliveries. This is three more than recorded during the previous season. In second and third place respectively were the Wirt Stone Dock in Bay City with 38 deliveries and the Wirt Stone Dock in Saginaw with 36 deliveries. Rounding out the top five are the Lafarge Cement Dock in Essexville with 23 deliveries and the Port Fisher/ International Dock with 21 deliveries. These top five docks accounted for a whopping 81% of the total commercial vessel deliveries in 2020. The two largest companies, Fisher and Wirt, each with multiple docks along the Saginaw River, accounted for a total of 78% of all commercial vessel deliveries. In all, accounting for split cargos by some vessels, which unloaded at two or more different docks during the same visit, there were 246 deliveries to the various docks along the Saginaw River. This is 42 more actual dock deliveries than during the 2019 season.
The Lower Lakes Towing/Grand River
Navigation tug, Olive L. Moore, paired with the self-unloading barge Menominee,
defended their the title of “Queen of the Saginaw River”, again making more
trips to the river in 2020 than any other vessel. The pair logged 43 visits this season, eight
more than in 2019 and 30 more than the boat the with second most trips to the
Saginaw River, Interlake Steamship’s Herbert C. Jackson, who had 13. The Olive L. Moore/Menominee has now been the
workhorse of the Saginaw River 14 of the past 15 years. Rounding out the top five most frequent
vessels is a three-way tie for third:
Algoma Central’s Algoma Innovator, American Steamship’s John J. Boland,
and Lower Lakes/Grand River’s Calumet, all with eight visits each.
The company leading the way with
the most cargo deliveries to the Saginaw River during the 2020 season was Lower
Lakes Towing/Grand River Navigation, with 70 vessel deliveries, an increase of
14 deliveries over 2019 and accounting for 35% of all deliveries in 2020. They have now been leading the way on the
Saginaw River for 13 of the past 14 years. The Interlake Steamship Company logged
the second most visits, with 27 trips, down from 46 in 2019. Coming in third place was the American
Steamship Company with 21 deliveries to the Saginaw River, down three from
2019. These three companies accounted
for 58% of all deliveries on the Saginaw River in 2020. Rounding out the top five companies were
Algoma Central Marine and LafargeHolcim/Andrie both with 15 trips each.
There were a number vessels that
were visitors to the Saginaw River in 2019, that did not make a return visit
here in 2020, with those vessels being: American
Steamship Company’s 1000 footers American Century, American Integrity, Indiana
Harbor, and Walter J. McCarthy, Jr.
Others were Sam Laud, Great Republic, and Manitoulin. Saltwater vessels included BBC Elbe, BBC
Plata, BBC Polonia, BBC Louise, BBC Leda, and Industrial Strength.
The list of boats that were not visitors
in 2019, but did make an appearance on the Saginaw River in 2020 includes the
longest vessel on the Great Lakes, Interlake Steamship’s Paul R. Tregurtha,
making a first ever visit, the Robert S. Pierson, and BBC Volga. There was a list of saltwater vessels making
a first ever visit to the Saginaw River in 2020: the BBC Vessels Gdansk, Mont Blanc, Rushmore,
Switzerland, Greenland, Edge, Song, Vesuvius, Peru, and Brazil. The others were Timgad, Zea Servant,
Caroline, Amoenitas, Hilke, Calypso, Spiekeroog, and Azoresborg.
There were a number of other notable stories during the 2020 season:
Wind energy was a considerable theme relating to cargo delivered to the Saginaw River in 2020. Over the past few years, wind turbine components have been delivered here by boats, trains, and trucks, with the components including everything from the blades, to the tower segments, to the nacelles. This season however, we witnessed the largest ever amount of wind turbine blades delivered to the Saginaw River. Twenty one vessels called on the Port Fisher Dock in Bay City and unloaded these blades for delivery to wind energy farms throughout Michigan. As a result, Malcolm Marine Incorporated’s workhorse tug, Manitou, spent a large part of the 2020 season here on the Saginaw River, standing by at the Lafarge Cement dock in Essexville, ready to assist these saltwater vessels with turning around on the Saginaw River as well as getting safely on and off Port Fisher dock.
The tug Manitou also assisted a number of other vessels, including Algoma Buffalo and Calumet, during a time of high water and currents due to extreme rainfall and dam failures on the tributaries that feed the Saginaw River, and the tanker Iver Bright, when she would arrive to unload liquid asphalt at the Bit-Mat dock.
An iconic structure that sat on the bank of the Saginaw River since the 1940’s disappeared from the landscape and skyline in 2020. The J.C. Weadock power generating plant in Essexville was retired by Consumers Energy in 2016 and demolition started. In 2020, with controlled explosions, the remains of the structure were brought down and hauled away. Interlake Steamship Company’s Dorothy Ann – Pathfinder ended up making two deliveries to Consumers Energy, dropping stone to fill the hole left by the old Weadock Power Plant.
In February 2020, it was announced that Wilkinson Minerals would be opening a facility on the Saginaw River, just east of the Independence Bridge in Bay City, and begin pumping salt brine from a large deposit known as the Sylvania Sandstone Formation. Wilkinson Minerals has stated that “the company will produce both liquid and dry salt products, with the liquid products primarily shipped out on the river”. At last report, construction was supposed to begin in 2021.
Maintenance dredging took place along sections of the Saginaw River during the 2020 season. Crews from the Ryba Marine Construction Company, based out of Cheboygan, Michigan handled the work, with their tugs Kathy Lynn and Kristin Joelle each spending time working on the river.
While not located on the Saginaw River, another iconic structure was lost in 2020, when crews demolished the old U.S. Gypsum marine loading building located in Lake Huron, offshore from their old mine in Alabaster. Originally built in the 1920’s and last used in 2000, the scrap from the demolished building was barged to the Saginaw River, again by the Ryba Marine tug, Kathy Lynn, and unloaded at the Port Fisher dock in Bay City for recycling and disposal.
Some other vessels visiting the Saginaw River in 2020 were the U.S. Coast Guard cutters Hollyhock and Adler, handling aids to navigation work for the Saginaw River Entrance Channel out in Saginaw Bay. Michigan Department of Natural Resources research vessels Tanner and Wheeler also made appearances on the Saginaw River, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers surveyed the Saginaw River channel to ensure there were no hidden hazards after hydroelectric dam failures in Edenville and Sanford caused flooding on the Saginaw River. Commercial shipping on the Saginaw River was suspended for a short time until conditions were safe enough for transit and the survey was completed.
As the shipping industry continues to evolve, adapt and move forward, it is the hoped that commercial traffic on the Saginaw River will continue to thrive and grow and that the products and materials handled here continue to expand. Hopefully the 2021 season will be at least as good as 2020 and will be a safe and profitable one for everyone.
Here is wishing you all a safe and
prosperous shipping season in 2021!
Disclaimer: Please know that
information contained in this report is 99.9% accurate and error free. I work extremely hard striving to make this
information as accurate as possible, but please remember, there is always the
possibility there may have been a vessel passage or dock delivery that I missed,
as tracking vessels on the Saginaw River for the entire season is not an easy
or exact science. Thank you for taking
the time to read my year-end report. I
hope you find it informative and enjoyable. I will see everyone again in 2021 for my 17th
season of logging commercial vessel movements on the Saginaw River.
Thanks for your support,
Todd A. Shorkey
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