By TIM ALEXANDER
Illinois Correspondent

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — The Illinois Corn Growers Assoc. (ICGA) was among many supporters of the 2010 Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) that expressed disappointment Friday when the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved the act.

The WRDA calls for the widening of six locks on the Illinois and upper Mississippi rivers and a river ecosystem restoration plan

The committee approved it without including the industry-approved Inland Waterways Capital Development Plan. Though members of Congress requested the plan – designed to help to fund WRDA through the imposition of a new fuel tax for barge operators using the waterways – it was left out of consideration in the House Committee Room, said ICGA immediate past president Rob Elliott.

“Next fall, when a 70-year-old lock fails and Chicago doesn’t get its salt for the winter; when the grain basis tanks and prices fall apart so Deere in East Moline lays off people at their Combine Works; when corn exports shift from U.S. corn farmers to the rivers out of Argentina and Brazil; maybe then people, including some in Congress and in the administration, might wake up,” Elliott stated in a post on the ICGA’s website at www.ilcorn.org

“It is really disappointing that the new Capital Development Plan wasn’t even considered. Corn farmers stepped forward and said we’re even willing to contribute more via the barge tax to help fund improvements to locks and dams, understanding that WRDA’s success would depend on a private-public partnership.”

The comprehensive plan was endorsed by more than 200 industry stakeholders including national, regional, state and local organizations and companies after a two-year study by a Joint Inland Waterways Users Board – in conjunction with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – led to the forging of the plan.

Under terms of the plan, waterways users would have contributed an average annual investment level of $380 million, or $7.6 billion in total, for construction projects and lock rehabilitation efforts.

An increase of between 30-45 percent in the existing fuel tax of 20 cents per gallon paid by barge operators was approved, with proceeds helping to preserve the existing 50/50 cost-sharing formula between industry and government for major lock rehabilitation projects costing $100 million or more. “The plan makes sense because it prioritizes projects, uses a 50/50 cost share formula using a fuel tax by river users and federal dollars and puts a cost-share cap on all new lock construction projects that would preserve the Inland Waterways Trust Fund, by preventing the industry from having to fund significant cost overruns,” Mark Lambert, of the National Corn Growers Assoc., said earlier this year.

“The plan is a way forward that is desperately needed.” said Paul Rohde, vice president of the Waterways Council, Inc., in April.

“It is the best chance we have to get construction of new locks.

“The reality is that the Corps is backed up with construction projects already under way.

“Without this plan, over the next 20 years the Corps would be able to finish about seven projects. With this plan in place, that number jumps up to 25 projects the Corps could work on and complete.”

The Inland Waterways Capital Development Plan was created as an answer to the Obama administration’s poorly-received plan for a per-barge, per-lockage tax on commercial river users to help fund WRDA and other river infrastructure projects.

Modern lock and dam infrastructure is essential to U.S. competitiveness in the world market, environmental protection, energy efficiency, American jobs and traffic congestion relief, according to the ICGA.