Let’s Build the Canal! Could Kirwan’s Folly save the Mahoning Valley in the 21st Century?
June 14, 2008
I was reading according to the Syracuse Post-Standard:
Rising fuel prices are pushing shippers to take a new look at an old way to deliver their goods - the Erie Canal. "Our inquiries are definitely up," said Capt. Rob Goldman, of New York State Marine Highway Transportation Co., the largest shipper on the state's 524-mile canal system.
There is a good reason: " According to the federal transportation department, shipping by water is far more energy-efficient. In a tractor-trailer, one gallon of fuel is needed to transport one ton of freight 59 miles. On a barge, the same load will go 514 miles on a gallon of fuel."
The tide may be turning for the canal’s commercial use, said Carmella Mantello, director of the state’s Canal Corp.
“The canal is slower, but it’s fuel-efficient and it’s greener,†Mantello said. “One barge can carry the equivalent of 60 tractor-trailers.â€
The Standard concluded: The point many times before: in a world without oil, the place to be is near the water and near the customers. "Its time to get back to planting those cabbages in upper New York State and to get HJ Heinz back processing tomatoes and use that railway and Erie Canal to bring local food to that enormous Northeast Market.... That is where the future is."
That got me to thinking today where would the Mahoning Valley be today if former Congressman Michael Kirwin’s Lake Erie and Ohio River Canal was actually built? What would it mean today for the valley with diesel at over $4 dollars a gallon today?
According to the 1948 Pennsylvania Railroad Board of Directors Inspection Trip of Physical Property, the canal would have flowed from the mouth of the Beaver River at Rochester, Pa. to a point near Ashtabula, Ohio on Lake Erie.
The canalization of a part of this route from Rochester, Pa. via the Beaver and Mahoning Rivers to Struthers, Ohio, six miles south of the center of Youngstown, Ohio, has also been considered and vigorously supported by Youngstown interests. This is known as the stub or dead end canal, and efforts to have its construction approved by the U. S. Senate failed in December 1944. The annual prospective tonnage for the canal is estimated at 36,714,000 tons, consisting chiefly of coal, coke, iron ore and stone, with average annual savings to shippers of $24,455,000.
As the Independent Green Party Candidate for State Representative for the 60th district, I see the challenge now is to do what the New Deal did-create institutions that will support and sustain a decent society. Let’s finally build that canal, save transportation fossil fuel, and vindicate Kirwan’s Folly.
Dennis Spisak- Campaign Site: Http://votespisak.tripod.com
Where would we get the money to build a canal ... the state's broke the federal government is broke ... the national economy is so deep in the red that it is selling off all our assets just to pay the interest on the money we're borrowing?
Raise taxes!! lol, jk, I'm a conservative.... no, really I am.
Well, I am sure the canal would bring more benefits than the bridge to nowhere in Alaska.......
Dennis Spisak