Senate Assistant Majority Leader Richard Durbin (D-IL) Swamps the Badger

Senate Assistant Majority Leader Richard Durbin (D-IL) recently held a press conference that helped to generate more than 7,000 comments regarding the EPA's proposed consent decree that would order the Badger to finally stop its practice of dumping tons of coal ash laced with toxins into Lake Michigan sailing every day. 

The video of the press conference follows:

Improved Web Portal Makes Using the St. Lawrence Seaway Easier

The St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation (SLSMC) has just improved its web portal for Seaway users on www.greatlakes-seaway.com.  The web portal currently provides Seaway users with access to online services, including the submission of electronic Pre-Clearance and Transit Declaration forms.

In addition to completing transit declaration forms online, the SLSMC has just introduced a new feature to its e-business portal.  Customers may now also attach supporting documents such as manifests, bills of lading, weight reports or other related documents (instead of sending the documents via email or fax).

Access to the improved portal and its many features can be acheived by using the following link:
www.greatlakes-seaway.com/en/seaway-business-applications.html

To attach supporting documents to a Transit Declaration, please follow these steps:

1. Select an “Unbilled Transit” from the list, complete the Transit Declaration form, and press “Save”;
2. After pressing “Save”, the user will observe that a new button has been added to the form marked “Attach”.
3. Press the “Attach” button, and proceed to add any supporting documents (up to 5 documents in total).
4. Once the documents are attached, press “Done”, which will return the user to the main menu of Pre-Clearance / Transit Declaration forms.  The attachments at this stage are stored with the associated Transit Declaration, which appears within the “Saved Transit Declarations” list.
5. Select the appropriate Transit Declaration from the list of “Saved Transit Declarations”, and press the “Submit” button to transmit both the Transit Declaration and the Attached Documents to the billing department for processing.
6. Once you “Submit” a Transit Declaration, you may not modify the form or the list of attachments.

Should Seaway user require any assistance, they can contact the SLSMC billing department by telephone at 450-672-4110 or billing@seaway.ca.

This Week's Poll Question

Last week's poll received more attention and participation than any other such survey we have conducted in more than five years of publishing Great Lakes-Seaway News.  The results are in, and readers of Great Lakes-Seaway News indicated that by a margin of 73-27 percent, they favored International Longshoremen's Association's position in the dispute between ILA Local 1982 and Midwest Terminals of Toledo.

Today's survey should be less controversial, but feelings are bound to be strong.

Great Lakes Iron Ore Industry History

Please take a couple of minutes to have a look at this 1955 news reel about the Great Lakes shipping and iron ore industries in the mid-1950s.  It gives you an idea of where people got the idea that the Great Lakes were only open for shipping eight months of the year in those days.  Great Lakes-Seaway shipping now extends for more than 280 days from the sedon half of March until January.

May Snowstorm Falls on Upper Great Lakes, Heads East

A rare May snowstorm that dumped more than a foot of snow on Colorado and Wyoming earlier this week is currently giving residents in the northern sections of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan's Upper Peninsula and Ontario and mariners sailing on Lake Superior a chance to experience a last, brief burst of winter weather.

Global warming activists in the Upper Great Lakes region would be well advised to take the rest of the week off or suffer ribbing from those who have noticed the cool, wet spring that is now lingering into a month that normally sees quickly rising temperatures.

At the Port of Duluth, MN a morning marked by gathering clouds should bring light snow showers later today giving way to generally clearing skies and temperatures that are not expected to reach the 40 degree mark.  Light snow is already falling in Thunder Bay, ON this morning and snow showers are predicted to remain in the area for most of the day.  Northwestern Wisconsin is expected to bear the brunt of the storm with some sections of that state expected to get 12-18 inches of snow today.

The storm is expected to track eastward over the next few days dropping substantial snowfall totals across a wide swath of Southern Ontario and Quebec before heading out into the North Atlantic.

The cool wet weather has been welcomed by Midwestern farmers who are hoping the the higher levels of precipitation will improve soil moisture conditions to counteract the effects of last year's persistent drought.  Still, the cool wet weather may create substantial delays in spring plantings, particularly if the cool, wet weather continues into the weeks ahead.  In the Upper Great Lakes and Northern Plains regions in particular, the timing of spring plantings can have an out-sized impact on crop yields.  Farmers like to get their seed into the ground as soon as the danger of frost has passed so they can take advantage of the relatively short growing season.