Ice Breaking Begins On Lake Superior Anticipating Shipping Season
We can expect a ship to come through the canal soon, the Coast Guard is out chopping ice up to make way for the boats.
Boreal says in the next two weeks, the Coast Guard will make their way up to Thunder Bay then to the Apostle Islands, where they will take a couple of days to break the ice, according to the Coast Guard.
The locks of Sault Ste Marie will open on March 25th, so the cutter has to have everything passable by that time so they can make it to their respective ports. Boreal reports that the NOAA says the peak ice level happened in mid-February.
MASSENA â Canadian federal funding for the Seaway International Bridge is set to run out at the end of March. With no American funding set to come into effect, bridge officials are worried.
Officials with the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation said Tuesday that additional funding must be secured soon to avoid a negative impact on traffic across the bridge, which includes essential workers and freight shipments.
Since the U.S.-Canada border closed in March 2020 due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, toll-paying traffic across the Seaway International Bridge has dropped by 80%, leading to a 70% loss in toll revenue.
According to Todd Kealey, public affairs director for the Canadian Federal Bridge Corporation, which oversees the Canadian governmentâs stake in the bridge, the Canadian Minister of Transport allocated $2.59 million Canadian dollars to support the bridge in July of last year to last through the end of Fiscal Year 2020-21.
MASSENA â The $1.5 million in aid money set aside for the Seaway International Bridge in the latest round of federal COVID-19 aid legislation has been scrapped, reportedly because Rep. Elise M. Stefanik didnât advocate for its inclusion.
While the House passed a version of the bill that included the money in late February, the Senate is still workshopping its version. On Tuesday, it was announced the Senate version would not include the bridge funding.
The $1.5 million was meant to make up for revenue losses caused by a steep drop in paid car and truck travel across the bridge because of the ongoing U.S.-Canada border crossing restrictions.
Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Pelosi, confirmed Tuesday that both projects had been removed and argued that Republicans now don’t have much reason to oppose the popular relief package.
Hammill noted the pandemic has had an immediate and overwhelming effect on all of our transportation systems and that the House included $1.425 billion to help dozens of major transit rail capital projects.
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The senior Democratic aide characterized the bridge money as a project that primarily would have helped Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik
“The Senate Parliamentarian has now ruled that the BART extension from San Jose to Santa Clara does not meet the requirements of the Byrd rule because it is part of a pilot project. Therefore, it will be removed from the reconciliation package,” the aide said.