Cargo and Freight

A bipartisan deal on how to manage the nation’s water resources has potentially big implications for the Great Lakes and the region’s states — authorization of a nearly $1 billion project at the Soo Locks, movement on a plan to stop Asian carp, and more money to protect drinking water.

Signed into law in October, the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) also establishes new programs to research the eradication of zebra mussels and Asian carp and to explore technologies that prevent harmful algal blooms in the Great Lakes.

It’s been just over a year since the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave the nation’s infrastructure an overall grade of D+ in its once-every-four-years Infrastructure Report Card. Recent months have brought plenty of new evidence of the challenges states face in bringing that grade up but also some positive signs that progress can be and is being made.

Issue: Factors like the decline of brick-and-mortar retail and rise of e-commerce in recent years have produced a transformation of the nation’s supply chain that is impacting multiple modes of transportation from trucking to rail to ports and airports. Those states that have been most successful in attracting elements of the new logistics economy have demonstrated the ability to tout key infrastructure assets, invest where necessary and enact programs to ensure they will have the workforce in place to serve this sector. As innovative companies like Amazon continue to expand their footprint in the years ahead, these efforts are likely to become even more important for those logistics leaders and the other states that hope to compete with them.  

After nine years of construction and a series of delays, a $5.4 billion expansion of the Panama Canal was inaugurated Sunday June 26. The expansion is expected to have a significant economic impact for U.S. ports and the states in which they reside. Here’s a rundown of what a number of states are expecting, the preparations and challenges that could lie ahead for the nation’s ports and some economic factors that could reshape expectations for the new canal.