Fall 2008

Seaway Compass

Great Lakes-Seaway Delegation Trip to Finland

Few of the world’s inland seas compare more closely to the Great Lakes than the Baltic Sea. With nine countries along its coastline, the Baltic is an international waterway vital to the economic, social, and environmental health of each bordering country. Nowhere is this truer than in Finland, a country with a long and rich maritime tradition. In September of this year, Dr. Richard Stewart of the Great Lakes Maritime Research Institute led a U.S. and Canadian delegation to Finland, to explore these similarities and to establish closer relationships with representatives from Finnish industry, government, and academia. Craig Middlebrook, Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation, Deputy Administrator, was a participant on this week-long trip, which proved to be a revelation, and he was anxious to share his thoughts with our stakeholders.

The surface area of the Baltic is 35 percent larger than the Great Lakes, but their water volumes are almost identical. The water of the Great Lakes is fresh, while that of the Baltic is brackish, but just like the Great Lakes, the Baltic is home to large cities (6 have metropolitan-areas with over 1 million people), as well as to environmentally sensitive natural areas. The challenges of balancing economic needs with environmental concerns in the Gulf of Finland would be familiar to any Quebecer or Minnesotan. The Baltic Sea is also home to a “sister” lock system to the Seaway: the Saimaa Canal--a binational waterway consisting of eight locks between Russia and Finland that links the Finnish interior to world markets 10 months of the year.

Text Box: A Seaway-sized Unifeeder ship transporting containers to the port of Kotka.   

In key ways, however, there are major differences between these vast inland seas, with the Baltic offering a model that many in the Great Lakes would seek to emulate. For example, the Baltic Sea is home to a vibrant short sea shipping industry, with regular feeder line and ferry services linking the major ports throughout the basin. This regularly scheduled service has been operating for over 30 years, during which time the short-haul movement of containers over water has become an integral part of the overall logistical supply-chain management for the region. The Great Lakes Seaway delegation met with such noted companies as Unifeeder and Finnlines, which operate Seaway-sized vessels (400-1000 containers) throughout the Baltic. The prospects for growth in this trade are such that the Port and City of Helsinki are building a brand new container port (to open in November) in Vuosaari, 30 miles east of the current downtown port. The Vuosaari port project is a good example of how government, private industry, and environmental interests can unite to promote economic growth in the maritime sector, while doing so in a sustainable (i.e., environmentally sensitive) manner.

  

Text Box: Ships along the Saimaa Canal.

Could the Great Lakes follow this model of short sea shipping feeder line service? After all, the vessel operators in the Baltic face some of the same challenges we do here: ice conditions, potential competition from surface modes, and overlapping/abutting regulatory regimes. The delegation found in Finland that to make this service a reality, favorable public policy has to be joined with clear economic need. Short sea shipping has a longer history in Europe than on our shores, but this tradition is kept relevant there by public policy that recognizes a robust intermodal approach to transportation logistics. One step in that direction for the Great Lakes would be the waiver of the Harbor Maintenance Tax on non-bulk cargoes. Moreover, the countries around the Baltic are very experienced in coordinating and harmonizing national policies that affect maritime commerce, through such organizations as the Helsinki Commission and the European Union. In the Great Lakes Seaway System, there have been great strides made in better coordination between the Canadian and U.S. Governments and between the U.S. Government and the eight Great Lakes States, but more work is needed.

Another area where the Finns are world leaders is in ice management. With similar climates, the Baltic and the Great Lakes are waterways where transiting in ice is a regular occurrence during certain times of the year. At the new Aker Arctic headquarters in Vuosaari, the delegation learned of the latest technological advances in the design of ice-class vessels. A meeting with the Finnish Technical Research Center (VTT) in Helsinki also proved particularly informative. The Finnish Maritime Administration has been using Automatic Identification System (AIS) technology since 2002 in its vessel traffic control centers. Building on this experience, the VTT has developed an innovative system called “IBNet” (Ice Breaking Net) to better manage the deployment of icebreakers and improve the transiting of vessels in ice conditions. The IBNet combines several key technologies, including AIS, weather satellite data, and water flow measuring devices to provide vessel traffic controllers a comprehensive, real-time analytical tool that greatly improves their ability to control and direct vessels in ice. Both Sweden and Finland are currently using IBNet with their large fleets of icebreakers. You can learn more about this amazing new system at the FMA’s website (www.fma.fi).

A few paragraphs can hardly do justice to what was learned by spending an intensive week among the Finnish maritime community. Suffice it to say that Dr. Stewart is (as he so often is) on to something worthwhile here in taking a closer look at “how they do it” over in the Baltic Sea. As commercial maritime navigation continues to evolve on the Great Lakes and in the Seaway, the recent binational trip to Finland provides several tangible guideposts on how our North American waterway can develop and improve in the future.


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