Aging Lake Erie Dock Out Of Commission Indefinitely

A dock at Cleveland's port is out of commission indefinitely because it's not structurally sound.

At a roundtable discussion with maritime industry executives and representatives of several elected officials this week in Cleveland on the infrastructure challenges facing the Great Lakes' aging ports, Port of Cleveland CEO and president Will Friedman said that engineers discovered during an annual inspection that the dock's steel wall had rusted away at the base. 

“After 60 years of being in use and having loads on it, it just gave way toward the bottom,” he said. “Material started to slough out underneath it. It doesn’t have the structural integrity required so we had to take it out of commission, and we’re going to have to rebuild it.”

The port has five other berths available to take up the slack, Friedman said, but the rusty dock will need to be repaired at an estimated cost of $7 million. He said he'll seek state and federal help but did not say when he expects to get the financing for the repair.

Port administrators and industry executives said they're encouraged by new legislative efforts to set aside money specifically for port infrastructure needs. The federal budget for FY2019 included a first-time appropriation of nearly $293 million for the Port Infrastructure Development Program within the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration. The American Association of Port Authorities named U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) its Port Person of 2019 for pushing for that funding.

At the Statehouse, the Ohio House of Representatives' two-year budget, passed earlier this month, calls for $10 million in each year for a new Ohio Maritime Assistance Fund. The bill is currently being considered by the Senate.