US Army Corps of Engineers

BUILDING STRONG®

Channel Portfolio Tool (CPT)

Kenneth Ned Mitchell, PhDU.S. Army Corps of EngineersEngineer Research and Development CenterCoastal and Hydraulics LabVicksburg, Miss.

Federal Highway AdministrationTalking Freight seminar

November 16th, 2011

Public Awareness Challenges

Corps invests hundreds of millions of dollars annually in maintenance of our hidden national waterway infrastructure.

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National dependence upon this vital infrastructure has not translated into full public awareness.

CPT Background

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The USACE Navigation Mission: to provide safe, reliable, and efficient waterborne transportation systems (channels, harbors, and waterways) for the movement of commerce, National security needs, and recreation.

Frittelli, J., HMTF Expenditures, Congressional Research Service, Jan 2011

CPT Background

• CPT is a web-based decision-support tool which helps convey the importance of Corps dredging activity to the efficient movement of maritime commerce.– Corps-only version: https://cpt.usace.army.mil– Public version: TBD, coming soon

• Started in late FY2008, with two primary objectives:– Provide consistent, objective prioritization of Corps Operations

and Maintenance (O&M) dredging activities for allocation of Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund (HMTF) outlays

– Provide Corps personnel with improved access to and understanding of the data provided by the Waterborne Commerce Statistics Center (WCSC)

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Deep-draft Navigation O&M

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• 350+ HMTF-eligible navigation projects are actively maintained• Wide variation in project spatial extent and level of use• USACE is historically a decentralized organization…

USACE District boundaries

Channel Portfolio Tool (CPT)

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Waterborne Commerce Data

• The Corps’ Waterborne Commerce Statistics Center (WCSC) collects and collates data from several sources concerning commercial use of US waterways.– Dock-level, origin-to-destination routing (Corps-use-only)– Includes tons, commodity types, vessel counts, drafts– Aggregated data already published at project level– Corps planning community has used WCSC data to

support harbor deepening projects and inland studies

• Corps Operations community has not consistently used this data beyond project-level tonnage and ton-mile metrics for O&M budget development.

http://www.ndc.iwr.usace.army.mil/wcsc/wcsc.htm

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• CPT spatially joins the docks in the WCSC database with the respective sub-reaches.

• Full network connectivity, ensuring that all transited channels are appropriately credited.

• Shortest-path routing used for domestic and inland river traffic transiting multiple projects.

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Spatial Join to Waterway Network

Depth Utilization Analysis

CPT then compares these tonnage-draft profiles to the segment controlling depths resulting from present shoaling conditions.

CPT can generate depth-utilization profiles showing the distribution of cargo across the range of maintained depths for any system of navigation channels.

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Focus on Shoal-vulnerable Cargo

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Navigation Systems Defined

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• CPT provides a flexible, accessible means of defining systems of maintained channels.• Corps decision makers can now see the extent to which these navigation systems are utilized by commercial shipping.

Visualizing Project Utilization

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Regional Summaries

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Visualizing Commodity Flows

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Visualizing Commodity Flows

Lower Miss. RiverOutbound petroleum, 2009

Understanding Navigation Systems

Lower Miss. RiverInbound corn, 2009

Corps O&M activities must be coordinated in order to realize system-level efficiencies and maximize benefits to the Nation.

Visualizing Commodity Flows

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Domestic traffic, drafting at least 27 ft, 2005-2008

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DredgingCosts

$ 10 M $ 20 M $ 30M $ 40 M $ 50 M

Duluth-Superior $ 6.0 M 1 1 1 1 1

Indiana Harbor $ 12.5 M 0 0 1 1 1

Two Harbors_MN $ 212 k 1 1 1 1 1

St. Clair River $ 17 M 0 0 0 1 1

Detroit $ 7.5 M 0 1 0 0 1

Presque_Isle_MI $ 1.5 M 0 1 1 1 1

Burns Harbor $ 2.5 M 1 1 1 1 1

Conneaut $ 2.5 M 0 0 1 0 1

Cleveland $ 9.0 M 0 0 0 0 1

Ashtabula $ 20 M 0 0 0 0 0

Restored Tonnage39.2 M 63.8M 90.3 M 107.9 M 130.9 M

Navigation Systems R&DBudget ceilings

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Disruptions due to 5-ft shoaling

Coal terminals;e.g. Mobile, Norfolk

Miss and Columbia Rivers grain exports

Great Lakes coal and iron ore

Navigation Systems R&D

y = 4190.6x - 87012

R2 = 0.9533

y = 5999.8x - 199378

R2 = 0.8326

y = 4492.1x - 131340

R2 = 0.9558

0

20000

40000

60000

80000

100000

120000

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Draft (ft)

To

ns

/ve

ss

el

Tons per vesselvs. draft

Navigation Systems Analysis• The Waterborne Commerce data via the CPT gives the Corps a straightforward O&M budget formulation capability and allows for more advanced navigation systems analysis.

• These efforts are drawing interest from other Federal agencies (e.g. CMTS) as well as the Transportation Research Board (TRB).

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Channel Portfolio Tool (CPT)

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Questions?

Dr. Ned MitchellUS Army Engineer Research & Development Center

Coastal and Hydraulics LabVicksburg, Miss.

Kenneth.n.mitchell@usace.army.mil601-634-2022