Steve Clark

The Ballard Locks stands to lose $2.1 million from its operating budget unless members of Congress can reconcile two different versions of a budget appropriation. Until that decision is made, the locks will have to operate on the lower of the two budgets.

"I'm going to give it this month, possibly this quarter but if I don't hear anything from Congress, I'm going to make some cut backs," warned Diane Parks, the chief of operations for the Army Corps of Engineers Seattle District.

During the summer, business and community leaders, along with Army Corp staff, convinced top Corp brass that a proposed cut of almost 40% of the locks operating budget would adversely affect maritime and supporting businesses that use the locks as a transit way. U.S. Senator Patty Murray worked to get funding levels restored in a senate version of the Corps' budget.

The U.S. House of representatives, however, has a budget that does not reflect these restored funds, and this difference must be worked out in a joint house & senate conference committee. Alex Glass, a spokesperson for Senator Murray, is not optimistic.

"It's a very very very tight budget. Everything's going to be scrutinized more, given the situation in the Gulf Coast," Glass said, referring to costly rebuilding that will be required in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Congressional leaders hope to have appropriations bills hammered out before the end of their session in December, but if it is not, the locks budget would still be cut under continuing resolution rules. In essence, no decision means the same thing as budget cuts.

Parks says the Seattle District staff have considered several scenarios for financing locks operation if their budget is cut, including reducing the number of hours the locks are open to as few as ten hours a day. Another scenario includes and reducing staff during opening periods.

"The [lock] users have the best information. I need them to feed back to me what that impact would be," Parks said.

Bob Shrewsbury, president of Western Towboat, doesn't have any doubt about what the locks being closed part time would mean.

"It would be a nightmare," Shrewsbury said. Western Towboat has 19 tugs in their fleet, some of them plying ocean routes, lugging 20,000 ton barges to Alaska on regular schedules, supplying coastal communities with everything from produce to pickups. Tug schedules tend to flex with tides, weather and customer demands and if one found itself locked out of, or into the ship canal, ships and crews would have to idle until the locks reopened.

But even given that, Shrewsbury admits moving out of the ship canal would probably not be an option, given the money Western Towboat has invested into their facility, which sits at the north side of Salmon Bay, between the Fremont and Ballard bridges.

Across Salmon Bay from Western Towboat, another marine company, Coastal Transportation, also worries about the specter of closed locks.

"That would have a huge negative impact for us," said Wayne Bouck, the sales and logistics manager for Coastal. Bouck said that Coastal, which employs about 100 people, does similar work freighting cargos to the Alaska coast and the Aleutian Islands out to Dutch Harbor. Coastal's ships, which include a small containership, arrive and depart at irregular hours, backhauling fish.

"Everything in Alaska is just in time [delivery] and that means something," Bouck said.

The Army Corps' Parks wants to hold a community meeting near the end of October, to solicit feedback from the community about potential solutions to a budget shortfall.

"Nothing is set, and we're trying to be optimistic that we're getting that 2.1 million," Parks said.

"We're trying to find ways not to put people on the street. That would be a nightmare."

Editor's note: As soon as the Ballard News Tribune receives information on a potential community meeting about the budget shortfall at the locks, it will be posted conspicuously in this paper.