Business and political leaders up and down the Saginaw River are starting talk once again of forming a port authority to boost economic growth in the Great Lakes Bay Region.
It’s an idea worth examining, but only if all interests are at the table.
We’re thinking specifically of the Saginaw River Alliance, a group of businesses along the Saginaw River in Saginaw and Bay counties that formed years ago over frustrations in getting a dredging spoils dump built for the upper river.
These are the people most affected by shipping on the river. They can help examine that aspect of a port authority, while others weigh in on trucking, air transport, rail and related uses of land in our region.
The importance of involving those most closely affected by a port authority, or the lack of one, is underlined by what happened when the Saginaw River Alliance formed, in 2005, and antied up money for the dump.
Then, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was threatening to take millions of dollars allocated for river dredging here and use it somewhere else. For a quarter-century, spoils dredged from the river upstream of downtown Bay City was taken to the Saginaw Bay Confined Disposal Facility popularly known as Channel Island while state and federal agencies, local governments and environmental groups fought over a dredgings dump for the upper river.
With the facility in the bay filling up, the Corps restricted it to accepting spoils from the lower river channel. And the upper river began to silt up. Great Lakers had to lighten their loads so they didn’t ground out and shippers began to wonder how much longer they could ply the river beyond Bay City.
Then the River Alliance formed. It wasn’t a particularly powerful or large group, but it was composed of the people and businesses most closely affected. They were employers who said the jobs they provided might dry up in an already stagnant state economy.
Not to overplay the role of the alliance, but its formation did come around the turning point for finding a dredging spoils site and getting it built.
It should stand as a lesson along the river that shipping commerce matters to this area, and the people doing that work have an important voice.
As Sen. Mike Green, R-Mayville, starts promoting the idea of a port authority, possibility attracting federal dollars to help commerce here, and the Great Lakes Bay Regional Alliance of Saginaw, Bay and Midland counties starts examining the proposal, they should be thinking about the people these plans would affect.
Invite them into the discussion, even put them in charge. They may be names that don’t hit the public spotlight very often, but they do know what they are talking about.
Does our region need a port authority? Would one benefit our area? Would it help create jobs?
Could be, might and maybe.
We’ve talked in this column before about the possibilities.
With a deepwater port open to the oceans of the world, the Saginaw River is in a position to ship bulk cargoes and finished goods to any market on Earth.
We have the expertise, the skilled manpower and the companies that could, if they chose, build giant wind turbines and then put them on freighters to meet the energy needs of a world literally sick and a populace tired of a dependence on fossil fuels. Solar power products may yet become dominant products from new factories here. Batteries will be built in Midland; we have vast tracts of timber Up North to feed the needs of the planet.
Shipping — by water, air and land — can move the products that may carry our part of the Great Lakes State to its next economic revival and into another era of prolonged prosperity.
Definitely, our region must consider all economic possibilities, including a port authority.
With eyes wide open, all hands on deck and led not so much by familiar movers and shakers alone but also by the people who make a living making commerce move.