Key Bridge Update

Balmer Sun, Baltimore shipping channel expected to fully open this weekend after months of cleanup

After months of cleanup and the use of temporary channels, Baltimore’s 50-foot deep, 700-foot wide shipping channel is expected to fully reopen this weekend and potentially as soon as Saturday.

When the Dali crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, it sent 50,000 tons of debris into the Patapsco River, blocking the channel and necessitating a lengthy effort to cut up and remove steel and roadway from the water. The channel initially was expected to be open by the end of May, but authorities later revised the target to June 8-10.

U.S. Coast Guard Cmdr. Baxter Smoak said Friday that the channel will be open Saturday or Sunday, depending upon the results of a survey of the channel.

The waterway reopening will not necessarily mean an immediate influx of huge ships. Large vessels were able to come through en route to and from the Port of Baltimore in recent weeks, using a narrower, temporary channel, but now the channel will be completely open. “With the 700-foot channel, we’re back to where we were pre-collapse,” Smoak said.

Typically, about 200 deep-draft vessels (ships that require use of Baltimore’s deepest channel) come to Baltimore each month, but that traffic was stalled by the bridge collapse. Since April 1, there have been about 150 such ships that have used a temporary channel to reach the port.

Traffic going past us on the way too and from Baltimore looks just about normal now. I saw a pretty big (but not Dali sized) container ship headed up the Bay towards Baltimore today.

It's amazing what happens when you stand back and let the deplorable boys with big toys go to work.

Also at the Sun,  Dali ship owner hires federal lobbying firm. 

The owner of the container ship that struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, collapsing the bridge and killing six workers, has hired a firm to lobby in Washington regarding proposed changes to liability law, according to federal lobbying records.

Grace Ocean Private Ltd., the Singapore-based owner of the cargo vessel Dali, retained the services of Blank Rome Government Relations on May 2, according to the disclosure form. Five Blank Rome staffers will “monitor and report on legislation pertaining to the bridge accident at the Port of Baltimore,” as well as lobby concerning “proposed changes to the Limitation on Liability Act of 1851,” the document said. The Dali’s owners invoked that law in court filings as they seek to limit their legal and financial liability for the March 26 bridge collapse.

I predict they still write a very big check.