According to news sources, a new lock at Sault Ste. Marie—a major thoroughfare for iron ore and other steelmaking materials—has made a priority list of potential targets for federal infrastructure spending issued by the Trump administration.
The priority list highlights Michigan-based projects for which Governor Rick Snyder has sought federal funding, including a Soo Locks modernization project. Snyder told The Detroit News in December a new shipping channel at the Soo Locks and a customs plaza for a new Detroit River bridge to Canada are two projects for which he is seeking funding.
The Soo Locks modernization project, which calls for construction of a new lock, would cost $580 million, create 600 direct jobs and generate a total of 15,000 jobs in the Eastern Upper Peninsula, according to the priority list.
The priority list references a Department of Homeland Security report suggesting that an unscheduled, six-month shutdown of the aging Poe Lock could cost 11 million jobs nationally and “shut down almost all North American appliance, automobile, construction, farm and mining equipment, and rail-car production within week.”
Snyder offered a similar warning this month in his State of the State address, telling legislators that pursuing federal funding for the project should be a top Michigan priority.
“We need a second 1,000-foot lock,” the governor said in the speech. “It was actually authorized by Congress back in 1986 and the money was never appropriated. Our entire economy in this country is at risk with having only one lock.”