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March 27, 2006 -- Vol. 6 Issue 13 Written by Jack R. Simpson (unless otherwise noted), owner of J.R. Simpson & Associates, Inc. and contributing editor to The Waterways Journal.
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 In This Newsletter:
Thought For The Week
Frequently, what is not said is more revealing than what is said. A Personal Note From Jack
 While I intend to comment today on a subject unusual for B&B, I will keep it short. During the recent barrage of news reports about the possible death sentence for a man who converted from Islam to Christianity, it was reported by Sean Hannity, of the Fox News Hannity & Colmes talk show, that there are about 10 countries where individuals are sentenced to death for converting away from Islam. Hannity asked why we are not reporting this fact. Our government, including President Bush, has done a big job downplaying this information. It is another bit of political correctness that is betraying and destroying our nation. For revealing information that you seldom hear, I suggest reading Patrick Buchanan’s “The Death of the West.” Since I haven’t finished it entirely, I can’t say if he speaks to the conversion issue. But I can tell you that the U.S. is rapidly changing into something we once thought it could never be. In fact, white residents of the U.S. are reproducing at a rate that is far less than required to sustain the race. We will soon be in the minority. Just think of the possibilities resulting from that! It is alarming to note that western Europe is in the same fix. Third-world countries are reproducing like rabbits. But back to the main subject. Why do we pontificate over whether it was politically incorrect for cartoons relating to Islam to be printed, when Islamic countries print negative cartoons about Christianity repeatedly? We are not dealing with peacemakers, and the sooner we bring that out in the open the better. Reports being sent home by Christian missionaries everywhere tell of terrible treatment handed down by people in the countries where they are serving. For Those Inclined To Pray
 We have modified the steps for joining our Prayer Circle. If you visit the Prayer Circle link on at www.littleriverbooks.com, you will find that those who sign up are completely anonymous. We do not ask for first names nor states of residence. Joining is as simple as providing an email address to which we can send future prayer requests. Each prayer request list includes a link for including requests.
By joining our Prayer Circle, you can tap into the prayerful support of circle members wherever they are. Membership and prayer requests are open to everyone. Newsletter News
If there are B&B readers who have requested help to find information and we have not followed through, please submit your request again. Usually we try to respond immediately. Sometimes, we fear, requests can get lost among the hundreds of emails we receive.
On The Waterfront
Barges May Be Built At Tell City, Ind., Again Back in the 1990s when Maxon Marine folded in Tell City, Ind., Tell City purchased the property and leased it to the Perry County Port Authority. Now, two companies have expressed interest in using the site to fabricate barges. The Tell City Common Council has agreed to offer to Tell City Marine Contractors LLC a 90-day option to lease the site. Greg Wathen, executive director of the Perry County Development Corporation, said it is hoped that within the option period an agreement can be finalized that would lease the property to the firm for 10 years, with future renewals being sought every five years. Among the investors involved are Michael C. Hagan and Jim Wolff, former American Commercial Lines executives, but ACL is not involved in the Tell City project. Details reveal that the investment could reach $14- to $18 million and possible employ 150 people. Stay tuned! Two Workers Die During Salvage Of Casino Barge At Gulfport, Miss. Two men who were involved in demolishing the Grand Casino Gulfport barge died March 21 while attempting to pump water from the barge. Tim Alan Fitzgerald, 49, Newport News, Va., went into the hull to pump water without underwater breathing equipment. Officials said he was quickly overcome by the toxic gas hydrogen sulfide. When Miguel Hidalgo-Soberano, 48, of Cardenas Tabasco, Mexico, entered the barge in an attempt to rescue Fitzgerald, he, too, was overcome and perished. The men were part of a marine team working with PRC Environmental, the Houston-based company that was dismantling the barge. (Editor’s note: It has been quite some time since we have heard about workers perishing because they entered tight marine spaces that had not been gas-freed. It is an important reminder.) (Editor’s note: The following March 23rd news release is from one of our sponsors, the Midwest Area River Coalition (MARC 2000), based in St. Louis, Mo.) Congressional Break Calls for ‘Reality Check’ On River Issues White House, 31 Senators to Senate Majority Leader: Move Forward with Water Bill! As Congress wraps up its weeklong break from Capitol Hill, river stakeholders continue to encourage action on Senate legislation slated to improve the locks and ecosystem of the Upper Mississippi River and Illinois Waterway. [Eighty-one] Senators, through three letters, sent a strong bipartisan message last month calling Majority Leader Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN) to assign floor time for the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA). WRDA, a national water bill that has been delayed six years, includes the locks project, the result of over a decade of study. Citing lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina, as well as the importance of strong American trade, the Administration earlier this month confirmed it will not impede Congressional authorization for needed infrastructure improvements at some lock sites on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois. Members of Midwest Area River Coalition (MARC) 2000 met with Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns earlier this month, where he confirmed the Administration’s position, stating, “The Administration is working with Congress. We’re not opposing the efforts relative to the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers lock & dam upgrades.”  “If you have any doubt about the importance of the Mississippi River system and its tributaries, you need only look at what happened when there was a rather short disruption during Hurricane Katrina,” continued Johanns. The Agriculture Secretary discussed the Mississippi’s results from Katrina’s impact on agricultural exports, including stoppages to grain elevators, disrupted river traffic, short- and long-term affects on trade opportunities, rising transportation costs, and lowered farmers’ prices, among others. “(Disrupted river transportation) just rippled all across the United States,” continued Johanns. The diverse coalition of MARC 2000 applauded the Administration’s renewed dedication to Upper Miss improvements, a topic President Bush addressed on the campaign trail through the important states of the Upper Mississippi River System. The U. S. House of Representatives passed their WRDA legislation last July by an overwhelming 406-14 margin. The Senate bill has yet to be assigned calendar time. MARC 2000 represents leading organizations in transportation, agriculture, organized labor, shipping, industry, economic development, recreation and other proponents advocating modernization of the almost 80-year-old infrastructure of locks & dams and ecosystem restoration on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers. Tenn-Tom Authority Appoints New Administrator The Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway Development Authority, Columbus, Miss., has announced that Thomas Griffith, Amory, Miss., was appointed the new Tenn-Tom administrator during a recent quarterly meeting. He replaced Don Waldon, who had been with the authority many years but retired this year. Griffith is a charter member of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway Development Council and has served as that waterway trade association’s chairman. He is past president of the Mississippi Water Resources Association and the Mississippi Municipal League. Griffith also has served as a member of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Regional Resources Council and most recently was chairman of the Three Rivers Planning and Development District. (Editor’s note: While welcoming Thomas Griffith, I want to express my sincere appreciation for outgoing administrator Don Waldon, with whom I have communicated regarding Tenn-Tom business for upwards of three decades.) You can contact the editor directly at jacksimpson@littleriverbooks.com. advertisement
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Re: Navigation Season In St. Paul St. Paul, Minn. — The 2006 navigation season in St. Paul began March 22 when the towboat Reggie G of Bettendorf, Iowa-based Alter Barge Line, arrived with 12 barges and landed in a barge fleet below Pigs Eye Bridge. She was assisted by the towboat Itasca of Upper River Services, a local fleeting service. The next northbound arrivals were American River Transportation’s American Beauty and Roberta Tabor, and Alter’s Phyllis. Mike Murphy (Editor’s note: Another correspondent said the Reggie G was supposed to turn light boat and move south later the same day. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said that for the last 30 years, the average opening date for the navigation season at St. Paul has been March 20.) Re: the Lachlan Macleay Thanks for another great “Bitts and Bites”. I really enjoyed the pictures and information on the Mv. Lachlan Macleay, as I made a few trips on her. The notation that she ran on bunker C was a sure fact to note. I witnessed what it did to those GM cylinder heads. They looked like they had been shot with a Howitzer cannon when they were pulled. A great engineering idea it was, but proved to be impractical and costly. Thanks again, Byron Rozier Salem, Ark. Re: the Lachlan Macleay 
Since you opened the Lachlan Macleay box last week, here she is hard at work, downbound UMR 328.5 in June of 1971. Michael Herschler (Editor’s note: Would you believe that Michael remembered that he had photographed the Macleay with an Argus A4 using Kadachromke 64 film? Even barnacle covered Ron can’t remember that far back.) Re: No-Bid Contracts I must comment on your no-bid editorial. Working for a quasi government agency, procurement can be a nightmare. It usually takes a minimum, and I mean a minimum, of a month to get criteria established, get the bids out, and review all the bids. We complain about how long it has taken to get recovery underway from Katrina, well I can guarantee that nothing would be done by now if they put every damn thing out to bid. The delays and overall cost would be horrendous. I see no problem at the early stages of recovery being no-bid having had to suffer the bureaucracy personally on some bid offerings taking months to complete. That’s my 2-cents worth. J.T.D. (Editor’s note: Believe it or not I really welcome your letter. I know a little bit about no-bid contracts, and I know there are, sometimes, justifiable reasons for using them. Your letter sheds light on an area few people understand. I wish more people would give us further explanations and specific examples to broaden our knowledge. I used to work closely with a builders’ exchange and the focus, of course, was contracts. I know that many times contracts are submitted from firms that don’t begin to have the equipment, knowledge, experience and manpower to carry out some contracts successfully even if they did get them. Thanks for the enlightenment. Maybe the feds should be more open about why some of these things are done as they are.) (Second Editor’s note: Acting FEMA director R. David Paulison pledged to reopen no-bid contracts that had been awarded to Shaw Group, Inc.; Bechtel Corporation; CH2M Hill Inc.; and Fluor Corp. News reports say FEMA has failed to follow up on that pledge. The contracts were awarded last October in efforts to speed recovery that FEMA officials said would have been delayed if they had utilized competitive bidding.) Re: the Lachlan Macleay Your photo section contains an image that makes me recall something from my dim, distant past. It’s the pix of the Lachlan Macleay. Back, maybe in 1956 or ‘57, I worked on a photo feature for the old “Missouri Farmer” magazine, a publication of the Missouri Farmers Association, Columbia, Mo. The story was about grain movement on the Missouri River. I had contacted, I believe, Federal Barge Lines for permission to do the story. The reply said I could ride the Lachlan Macleay from Kansas City to St. Louis. So, on the appointed date, I took a bus to Kansas City, stayed overnight in a downtown hotel, planned to meet the boat on the KC riverfront the following morning. I had been given the boat’s “mobile phone” number. Far before sunrise I was up, riding a cab down to a darkened, railroad yard’s track-infested riverside where Capt. Archie Howell had told me to watch for him about a certain time. Sitting in the cab, the time came and went. I offered to get out of the cab and just await the boat’s arrival. The cabbie said, “No way I’m going to leave you alone down here.” I finally was able to connect by phone again and learned that some unavoidable delays would put the tow into Kansas City about three hours later than planned. Ultimately, long after sunrise, the downbound tow rounded a bend, made for shore, swung bow upstream, and slipped the lead barge against the rocks. Then a plank was swung across the watery gap below. Yup, I made it across and thankfully landed on the barge’s steel deck. Invited to the pilothouse, I ensconced myself on the lazy bench, took camera in hand and began my coverage. All went well as we slipped by Kansas City and Capt. Howell left the wheelhouse while a mate took over. I don’t remember his name. Rounding a bend at Liberty, the stern got a might too close to the rock-covered, left-side, downstream bank. A wheel smacked something solid underwater, and from that point all the way to St. Louis we “shook and shaked” our way along. Capt. Howell surmised we had bent a blade or a shaft. The tow was approaching a high, railroad bridge across the river at what Capt. Howell called “Jackass Bend.” He pointed to some white paint scuffs far up on one pier and calmly told me, “See those white marks? That’s where the Minnesota (which one, I don’t know) lost power and we slid into the pier sideways.” Of interest was the method used to follow the wanderings of the Missouri’s channel. The information on channel, left or right of buoys, was written down by sounders, deposited in riverside mail boxes. A crewman would take the skiff, fire up the outboard and scat over to shore, retrieve the slip of paper, dart back to the tow where it was passed to the wheelhouse to guide the helmsman for the next few miles. We went a mile or so downstream from a grain elevator at Glasgow, Mo., tied off the two barges we were shoving, and went back to get a waiting, loaded barge at the elevator. On the run back down to pick up the original barges, we touched bottom a time or two, but soon were underway again with a three-barge load. A few miles upstream from Jefferson City, Capt. Howell began to show concern over whether the draw at Jeff City would be open enough for us to clear. It seems the ancient structure had been having difficulty cycling through its “ups and downs.” Checking the river stage again, Capt. Howell had a crewman go topside and measure the various antenna heights. It appeared we’d go through the draw with inches to spare. We did. Nearing the site of the St. Louis County waterworks facility, a blanket of fog stopped us for the night. The next morning, Capt. Howell elected to ride a rise in the Mississippi and take his tow down over the Chain of Rocks. The canal had not been built at that time. Then, with the tow close to St. Louis riverfront’s granite paving blocks, stepping carefully, I “walked the plank” carrying my camera bag and made it ashore. Those great experiences riding the river, watching deckhands and other crew going about their tasks, eating the great food aboard and photographing it all for my story, I got a full appreciation for towboating. Editing my images for the photo feature brought it all back to me. That experience put towboating and life on the rivers into my thoughts forever. And in later years the opportunity to ride the Mississippi from St. Paul to New Orleans, the Ohio from Pittsburgh to Paducah, the Cumberland and Tennessee, and the Illinois from Ottawa to St. Louis reveal just how much our river systems mean to this country and how they captured my personal interest. See what that one small pix of the Lachlan Macleay stirred up. Thanks. Glenn Hensley Kirkwood, Mo. Boat Photo Center
 I’ll have to say that I got carried away this week as I moved through this great supply of pictures I have on hand. Should keep you folks busy for a little while. You’ll find 19 pictures on the heap.
Contributions include: a picture of the Reggie G arriving at St. Paul from Jim Mihalek; another Reggie G arrival scene from John Miller; the Captain Charles H. Stone, the Rocket and the Great Lakes fireboat Fred A. Busse from Eric M. Johnson; two views of the Sherman A. Waxler, and the Mallard from Jerry Milam; two views of the Miss Kris, the Jacob Michael Eckstein, and two views of the J. Andrew Eckstein from Jeffrey L. Yates; three views of the Jesse B. Guttman and two of the Marcus Anthony from Brent Maletic; and the Lachlan Macleay from Michael Herschler. The identify of the Mallard proved to be a road block temporarily, but Old Faithful came through again. It took Dan Owen of the Boat Photo Museum just seconds (or was it less) to identify the Mallard. Our continuing thanks go to him for his assistance, come rain or come shine. Click here to see the latest pictures. 
Recipe Box
Do you have a good recipe you’d like to share? Submit your recipes here! The Book Beat
Last week in this section we began offering some great clearance buys on really good river books. We offered “Views on the Mississippi” and “Father Mississippi”. This week we will add four more. Remember, we have a limited supply and the price is right at our cost plus S&H. You can add some very good books to your library at vastly reduced prices and pay only the one shipping charge if you order them together.  First we offer “Taming The Upper Mississippi” with a list price of $17.50, now offered at $12 plus S&H. Our supply of these is 10.
 Second, is “Steamboats on the Fox”, a $29.95 book that we have sold for $20. Now it is offered at $15.00 plus S&H. A great tabletop book. We have 10 of these.
 Third, we add to the list: “In Search of Moon River”, a $12.95 book that we sold for $11 and are now reducing to $4.50. The purpose of this book is to help understand those seeking to buy a new recreational boat how the boat should be equipped for lengthy river cruises. Our supply is at four books.
 Finally, we provide a great bargain on “Let The Lower Lights Be Burning” a really great little historical novel about Warsaw, Ill. This book retailed for $9.95 and is now available to you for $5.00 plus S&H. It is from the author of “The Log of the Jesse Bill.”
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March 27, 2006 By Kathy Flippo  Went up to Lock and Dam 13 the other day to see what there was to see, which was nothing. So, I rang the gate buzzer and asked to come inside. Unfortunately I didn’t have cookies or cake or pie or sweet rolls for the crew, so I am lucky they didn’t throw me in the river.
Harold Atherton, “Bud,” has been lockmaster there since December 2004, when he took over after Ernie Jackson retired. Bud has put 23 years into his career with the Corps of Engineers, 15 of them here at #13 and the rest down the river at #14. He was an electrician at #14 and was promoted to… to continue reading, click here. See you on the Web, Jack Little River Books jacksimpson@littleriverbooks.com Don't forget to visit our web site! |
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