An idea whose time has come? |
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Local attorney would like to see federal stimulus dollars spent on opening river to navigation
By G. Michael Dobbs
Managing Editor
Thirty years ago, the Sunday Republican ran a lengthy piece written by a young Springfield attorney about a public works project that could dramatically improve the transportation infrastructure for Springfield, West Springfield, Holyoke and Chicopee. His idea did gain some political support and did progress to a certain point before it was killed.
He now believes the time is right to reconsider it.
Charles Ryan IV, the eldest son of the former Springfield mayor, had suggested establishing a container port on the Connecticut River. The river would have had to have been dredged in certain locations and the lock systems at Windsor Locks would have had to undergo modifications. The result would have been a river that could support barge traffic from the Long Island Sound to Holyoke.
The improvements to the river would then allow private commercial development along its banks to flourish, in Ryan's vision.
A container port here in the Greater Springfield area, he contended then and now, would be the perfect addition to the freight rail yards in West Springfield, the Westover civilian airport in Chicopee and the intersections of Interstate 91 and the Massachusetts Turnpike.
What stopped the project from moving forward was an evaluation in 1986 that assessed the economic potential versus the costs. The conclusion was that the cost didn't justify the outcome,
Local industrial development officials disagreed then and Ryan disagrees with the report to this day.
Ryan explained to Reminder Publications that in light of the Obama Administration's efforts to provide jobs while improving the nation's infrastructure, this project should receive reconsideration. He said it would provide construction jobs and then enduring private sector employment.
He believes that Springfield and other communities have not received the level of economic development dollars and projects as other parts of the state or nation.
What makes the project even more attractive in 2009 is the hydroelectric generating facility that had been part of the original proposal, Ryan asserted. In 1990 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rated the potential of such a facility at 90 megawatts.
Ryan recalled that he had been speaking with his father and uncle when he thought of the idea. While in Law School at Boston College, he visited the Army Corps of Engineers office in Waltham where he was told a similar plan had been developed during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt but was never implemented.
According to a report commissioned by the Army Corps of Engineers the dredging of the river and construction of locks and dams in Hartford and Enfield, Conn., had been authorized in 1930 and then again in 1935, but none of this work was undertaken.
The Connecticut River is navigable from Long Island Sound to just north of Hartford, where modern navigation is prevented by the locks at Windsor Locks, Conn. The locks were developed in 1829 to allow river traffic to travel around the Enfield Rapids. With the advent of railroads in the 1840s, Ryan said, the locks were used less and weren t properly maintained.
To build a container port facility in Hampden County, Ryan's plan called for the following elements:
The redesign of the lock system to pass through the Enfield (Conn.) rapids
As part of that lock system update, the construction of a dam with a hydroelectric generation system and a fish lift system
The dredging of the river north of the lock system to ensure the proper depth.
Ryan's 1979 opinion piece and his subsequent one-man campaign to generate support were successful, but perhaps part of that attention came from the times. William L. Putnam, the founder and owner of WWLP, wrote Ryan about the project describing it as "the greatest economic development idea in my lifetime."
Ryan noted in 1983 there had been considerable attention placed on the condition of the Connecticut River. There had been a successful fight opposing a plan from the Metropolitan District Commission to divert water from the river to augment Boston's water supply. By 1983, about $800 million had been spent to clean up the river's pollution. Springfield had built Riverfront Park and there were increasing numbers of shad and salmon returning to the river.
Congressman Edward Boland supported the project, Ryan said, and assisted in securing the attention of the Army Corps of Engineers in compiling an evaluation released in January 1986. He said that Ryan s successor, Congressman Richard Neal, had also shown support, but that Senators John Kerry and Edward Kennedy had not been involved.
Essentially the evaluation had to estimate how much economic activity would be generated by having the potential of barge traffic on the river versus the costs of the project.
The report concluded, "The total cost of the project, if it were to be built today exclusive of real estate, terminal facilities and mitigation, is estimated at $335 million with annual costs estimated to be at $32 million. Total project annual benefits amount to $27 million resulting in a benefit to cost ratio (BCR) of 0.7 to 1. Specific navigation annual costs and benefits are estimated at $12 million and $6 million respectively yielding a BCR of 0.5 to 1. Based on the above findings, navigation as a project purpose is not economically justified."
Adjusted for inflation, the cost of the project today would be approximately $670 million. The Boston Globe reported in 2008 the final cost of the Big Dig would be $22 billion.
Ryan did not accept the report's findings. In a rebuttal, he wrote, "Specifically the study fails to project commercial navigation as regards bulk, container or other modes for export or import, virtually whatsoever; as the study's models were predicated on all shipments resulting in empty backhauls. This effectively negates any realistic appraisal of bulk or container shuttle service, while doubling the study s 'costs.'"
He was not alone in fighting the report's methodology. Earl Weller, the chair of the Mayor's Industrial Development Advisory Committee in Holyoke, wrote the Army Corps of Engineers in May 1986, stating, "However, the Committee is concerned that some contributing costs savings or benefits were wither understated or ignored in your analytical work. For example, it appears that the projections of the job retention and producing effects of the project were extremely conservative. Also there is no accounting in the study for potential flood control savings and benefits resulting from a deeper river bed."
Weller asked for a careful reconsideration of the project and despite additional lobbying from Ryan, it never came.
In the second part of this story, local political and economic development leaders will be asked to look at this project from today's perspective.
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