Pittsburgh - Will Obama's plan for coal = End of the Three Rivers?

[SargeK]

Obama's and Biden's promises to end coal-fired electrical generation may spell doom for Pittsburgh's Three Rivers as we know them today.

Consider: These rivers, the Allegheny, Monongahela and the headwaters of the Ohio are maintained in a navigable (i.e. boat-able) condition for commercial tow traffic. Not for the benefit of recreational boaters, nor for supplying water to municipal water systems, or for hydrolectric power generation. These are but incidental benefits.

According to the Port of Pittsburgh Commission, from 1998 through 2006, an average of 47.5 milion tons of commodities were moved annually on the Three Rivers. An average of 35.2 milion tons were coal and lignite, for 74% of the total. Roughly three quarters of this coal was consumed in electrical power generation. (The remaining total of about 9-10 millions tons was used in coke production.)

If we stopped using coal in electrical power generation then, our water shipping drops by just over half. Since commercial tonnage is the statistic that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers tracks to justify its expenditures on the construction, operation and maintenance of locks and dams, it is reasonable that these projects in the Pittsburgh area would receive an even lower priority than they do today.

River transport of bulk commodities is the most efficient in cost per ton/mile, averaging just 74 cents per ton mile. This is about 1/3 the cost of the next best alternative, class 1 rail.

Already, the river system is suffering from a lack of adequate funding to maintain and upgrade lock and dam systems. Two dams are in danger of failure and need emergency stabilization work. A third has severely restricted traffic due to one lock chamber being closed. Should a dam fail, the sudden drop in water levels could result in catastrophic and cascading failures up and down stream. In the absence of a commercial justification for maintaining a navigable river system, the safest alternative is to demolish the dams and let the river return to a wild state.

So let's consider what that means for Pittsburgh: The end of recreational boating and commercial passenger traffic. Increased costs for electricity. Major changes to the design of municipal water system intakes. Wild variations in water levels with the summer having weed-choked and trash-strewn creeks replacing the familiar placid pools.

Also, it would spell the end of Consol Energy, its mines and river operations (along with all of the other similar operations), the end of the electrical power generation industry and theend of all of the businesses supporting and benefiting from these operations. It may spell the end of the US Steel and Koppers coking operations due to the cost of transporting coal rising above that which enables them to remain competetive

It would also be the end of the iconic vista of the Golden Triangle framed by the familiar waters of the Three Rivers.

[SargeK]

When you members of the USW, the IBEW and all of the other trade and industrial unions in Pittsburgh go into the both today an push the "D" button just like you were told to do, consider this: You aren't getting back at the "Big Boys", you aren't voting for your future - you are shooting yourselves in the foot.

[scooby321]

Workers are not that dumb.

[SargeK]

Ummmm. You were saying?

[MrB]

Psalm 141:9-10
9 Keep me from the snares they have laid for me,
And from the traps of the workers of iniquity.
10 Let the wicked fall into their own nets,
While I escape safely.

Let the dumbasses eat the ashes of their own folly.

[paul544]

Good. Now let them reap what they have sown.