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Show values to be conserved for most effective use. Most of the basic waterway facilities-channels, locks, and terminals-can readily accommodate several times the normal peacetime volume of barge traffic without drawing on these scarce commodities. No outlay for steel rails, switches, ties, ballast, or paving materials is required. Tow boats can efficiently propel a much larger cargo than is customarily handled in a peacetime tow. For rapid increase in carrying capacity per unit of steel and man days, the construction of barges is the most effective solution for dry cargo even if the comparative slowness of barge service is taken into account, and approximately as efficient as pipelines for liquids. About 24 tons of steel and a large amount of skilled manpower are required to build one 240- barrel gasoline tank car with its intricate rolling undercarriage and brake mechanism, while 250 tons of steel suffice for a 10,000-barrel tank barge of simple box design. This obvious truth was not at first appreciated by those responsible for the allocation of strategic materials in World War II. Arbitrary allocations of materials, location of strategic production units, and routing of military supplies by those ignorant of the potentialities of barge transportation prevented the waterways from fully achieving their usefulness in the war job. This is a lesson that the Nation cannot af- ford to ignore as it prepares for future emer- gencies. Inland waterway transport, on the other hand, has certain limitations and qualifications for emergency as well as peacetime transport require- ments. For example, the Upper Mississippi and Missouri Rivers can be utilized only during the open season of navigation; rivers are subject to droughts and floods; water routes are inflexible and comparatively slow and usually depend on railroad or truck service to effect delivery; the geographic location of the inland waterways pre- cludes their use or full use for the movement of many essential materials; certain limitations of lock and terminal capacity must be considered. There is, of course, a tendency in a period of emer- gency to feel that there is a shortage of all essen- tial facilities. Any justification of additional transportation capacity for defense purposes should be measured against the need of facilities in other key industries and for other forms of transport. Apart from the logistic value of an efficient inland waterways system in affording transporta- tion of military significance and thus expediting the successful outcome of a war, there is a tangi- ble, independent element of economic value in the wartime performance of freight transporta- tion that is at least partly susceptible of rough measurement in dollars and cents for credit against the monetary annual charges of provid- ing and maintaining the facilities. For example, 39 deep-sea tankers were lost by enemy submarine action on the open sea route between Gulf and domestic North Atlantic ports before the comple- tion of the Big and Little Inch pipelines. Efficient and economical barge tanker service via inland waterway between these areas during that period was averaging more than a million tons of petroleum and its products a year and con- tinued to increase this tonnage at the end of the war. If steel had been allocated for more barges, this volume could have been doubled without imposing any congestion on the waterway fa- cilities. Passenger Traffic and Recreational Uses Passenger transportation by common carriers on the inland and coastal waterways is of rela- tively minor significance compared with freight. Carriers reported to the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1948 total passenger revenues of 17 million dollars, from transportation of 15 million passengers. The Great Lakes and Mis- sissippi River carriers contributed to these totals 12 percent of the passengers and 40 percent of the revenues; the Atlantic and Gulf carriers, 55 percent of the passengers and 22 percent of the revenue; Pacific coast, 33 percent of the passen- gers and 37 percent of the revenue. Recreational use of the waterways for small boats and vacation purposes is, however, of con- siderable economic importance, and is growing. Coastal rivers, harbors, and canals have for many 210 |