Seaway shipping is down thanks to the harsh winter

The St. Lawrence Seaway at Montreal. Photo: Susan Novak, Creative Commons, some rights reserved

Cargo shipments on the St. Lawrence Seaway are down 25 percent after the long, harsh winter delayed the start of this year’s shipping season. That’s according to North Country Now.

More detail, you say? Well, in Montreal to Lake Ontario section of the seaway (which includes the Snell and Eisenhower locks near Massena) iron ore shipments are down nearly 42 percent; coal shipments are down nearly half; grain shipments are slightly down; and both liquid and dry bulk are down (39 and 27 percent, respectively.) On the up side (literally), general cargo is up 41 percent, “from 443,000 tons last year to 623,000 tons so far in 2014.”

Four hundred fifty four vessels have passed through the section this year, down from 632 this time last year — that’s 28 percent fewer.

The paper reports that the Coast Guard is saying that

Shipping was hampered after the official late-March Seaway opening date this year as U.S. Coast Guard and Canadian Coast Guard ice breakers were still creating pathways in April for commercial shippers through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway as ice chunks slowed traffic and created backups at the locks.

Tags: seaway, shipping, st. lawrence valley