On Tuesday of this week, the Army Corps of Engineers released its FY2023 workplan, detailing final funding levels for Corps projects across the United States. Late yesterday, the Corps released a breakout of the Great Lakes navigation projects included in the workplan.
Soo Locks
The workplan includes an additional $67 million for construction of the new lock at Sault Ste Marie, Michigan. These funds will join $214.2 million of infrastructure bill money already allocated to the project in FY2023 by the Biden Administration last October. Thus, total FY2023 funding for the Soo Lock project will be $281.2 million.
As of today, total Soo Lock funding stands at $1.65 billion. The project is currently under construction and Congress recently updated its authorization to allow for a total project cost of $3.2 billion.
Great Lakes O&M
The workplan also includes funds for operation and maintenance of Great Lakes navigation projects. These funds include dredging of harbors and connecting channels, repair and reconstruction of breakwaters and jetties, and maintenance work on the Poe, MacArthur, Black Rock and Chicago locks.
The President's budget proposed a total of $205.4 million for various Great Lakes O&M projects. Members of Congress added an additional $49.58 million via earmarks. Finally, the Corps assigned another $87.1 million to Great Lakes projects from so-called "additional funds" provided to the Corps by Congress. What are "additional funds?" Each year Congress provides the Corps with a slug of money that is unassigned. The intent is to give the agency some flexibility to address last minute needs. In FY2023, Congress provided the Corps with $352.3 million in additional funds for deep draft navigation projects. Great Lakes projects received $87.1 million of these funds.
In total, Great Lakes navigation O&M projects received $342.1 million in FY2023 from the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund (HMTF). Since total nation-wide appropriations from the HMTF were $2.318 billion in FY2023, the Great Lakes therefore received 14.7% of all HMTF distributions. The Water Resources Development Act of 2020 (WRDA2020) requires that no less than 13% of annual HMTF expenditures go to projects in the Great Lakes. Therefore, FY2023 funding far exceeded the 13% requirement.
To put this all in perspective, ten years ago, Great Lakes navigation projects received a total of $87.3 million in O&M funding. This year's funding level is 292% higher!
Many thanks go to the Great Lakes Congressional delegation for their tireless work to improve funding for Great Lakes navigation and eliminate the backlog of Corps maintenance work throughout our region. These investments are good for ports, vessel operators, regional industries, farmers, dredging contractors, marine construction companies and the many Americans who work in these sectors.
