BALTIMORE — Maryland has the weight of the federal government behind it as work continues to get the Port of Baltimore back up and running. Much of that support is coming from the Department of Transportation. Today, WMAR-2 News' Elizabeth Worthington spoke directly with Secretary Pete Buttigieg about the progress.
Yesterday, we heard a pretty dire warning from Scott Cowan, president of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) Local 333. He said the main channel needs to reopen within four weeks. After that, we risk seeing some of the work move away from the Port of Baltimore permanently.
We asked, “So, four weeks. Is that doable?”
“I haven’t seen a timetable from the Army Corps of Engineers or the Coast Guard," Buttigieg said. "But what I know is that every step is being taken to reopen the channel as quickly as possible, including incremental steps. There’s an 11-foot [temporary alternate] channel open now, and a vision to get a 25-foot channel open soon. But of course, there’s no substitute for that 50-foot channel that allows the heavy cargo vessels to come and go.”
During his press conference today, Governor Moore said there needs to be a channel depth of at least 35 feet to get those larger commercial ships moving.
We asked Secretary Buttigieg whether it's possible to open a temporary channel that's deeper than 25 feet, or if we need to wait for the main channel to reopen before large cargo and commercial vessels can move through.
"My understanding is that past 25 feet you’re looking at getting the original channel reopened. Now it may be that parts of it are available before others. Ordinarily, you have the whole channel wide open, you can have two-way traffic. But as you know, the original vessel is also still there, partially in the channel. These are things the Army Corps of Engineers and other professionals are working on closely. We’ll of course use any tool that we have to help get that work done and to support the state of Maryland and the excellent work they’ve been doing.”
Once the port is reopened, the focus will turn to rebuilding the bridge. President Biden said the federal government will pay for the entire project. $60 million in emergency relief funding has already been approved. Buttigieg has said in previous interviews that more funding will likely be necessary. In a tweet last week, he said: "This is just the beginning of our financial support."
Not everyone is happy with the plan to have taxpayer money foot the bill - lawmakers and citizens alike. Some argue the ship owners should bear the brunt of the cost, or pick up the tab entirely. Grace Ocean Private Limited, the company that owns the ship, is already seeking to limit its liability exposure to $43 million,denying any responsibility for the crash.
Secretary Buttigieg said: “What we’re making sure of is that funding is not an obstacle. There have certainly been cases where we’ve used our emergency relief funding in the past, just like we’re using it right now to help Baltimore, and then gone back and recovered some of that funding from responsible parties. And any party that is responsible or liable needs to be held accountable. And that may well include making the taxpayer whole for some of the costs. But we need to put those costs together up front because I don’t want to make Baltimore or Maryland wait one day more than necessary to get that work done of opening the port and ultimately restoring the bridge.”
In terms of how long it will take to rebuild the bridge, some experts have projected it could take up to 10 years.
"It's just too soon to say how long this is going to take. This is not just the main question that I've been asked; it's the question I'm asking too. I know it's on everybody's mind. But right now a lot is not known about the condition of the portions of the bridge that did not collapse. There will also be some complex decisions ahead about whether the new bridge should be the exact same proportions and design as the old one, which might have some advantages in terms of speed. Or whether it should be a different, or modified design, which could have other advantages but might take longer."
We also talked to Secretary Buttigieg about bridge and maritime safety.
Last week, the National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said the Key Bridge is a "fracture-critical bridge," meaning there's no "redundancy." Think of it like a three-legged stool; if one piece goes, they all go. Homendy says there are more than 17,000 fracture-critical bridges in the country, but this is no longer the preferred method to build bridges.
We asked, should people be concerned about that, and should we be looking to retrofit some of those 17,000 bridges to make them safer?
"Bridge safety is supported by a number of different overlapping layers, not just the design of the bridge, but inspection," Buttigieg said. "Some bridges are built in such a way that they don’t have those added layers of redundancy - that’s ok, if those pieces are made sure to be safe, protected, and in tact. But one thing we have been doing through President Biden's infrastructure package, is enhancing some of America’s bridges to make them more resilient to a number of threats including seismic threats and other issues that can effect the safety of our bridges.”
“It’s too soon to know all of the things that NTSB will find or the steps that they’ll recommend. What we know is that this is an extraordinary case - a vessel with a mass of about 250 million pounds, and it is not clear whether there is any known design that could’ve withstood that. That’s exactly what the NTSB is gonna work on.”
There’s also been some concerns that there’s just not enough oversight when it comes to international safety regulations for these massive cargo ships. We asked if the department is looking at ways to tighten things up, and whether that could have played a factor in this case.
"Right now it's just too soon to know because NTSB’s investigation is independent. What I will say is, anything we find, whether it's about vessels or about bridges, will become part of the future of policy, regulation, design, and funding for transportation in this country. They won't be finalize that investigation overnight, but when they do, we're gonna look at every piece of it, every insight that comes out of it, to see how we can make American transportation systems even safer."