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<h1>Idaho's Port of Lewiston in business slump </h1> </div>
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<a style="text-decoration: none;" name="fb_share" type="box_count" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.katu.com%2Fnews%2Fbusiness%2F104670234.html&t=Idaho%27s%20Port%20of%20Lewiston%20in%20business%20slump%20%7C%20KATU.com%20-%20Portland%20News%2C%20Sports%2C%20Traffic%20Weather%20and%20Breaking%20News%20-%20Portland%2C%20Oregon%20-%20Portland%2C%20Oregon%20%7C%20Business&src=sp"><span class="fb_share_size_Small fb_share_count_wrapper"><span></span><span class="fb_share_count fb_share_no_count fb_share_count_top"><span class="fb_share_count_inner"></span></span></span></a>By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS, Associated Press Writer
</div></div><span class="moddate">Story Updated:
Oct 11, 2010 at 12:17 PM PST
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LEWISTON, Idaho (AP) - The big barges and small cruise
ships are almost a surreal sight as they sail past dun-colored farm
fields and bare hills in the arid landscape of the inland Northwest.<br><br>But
sail they do, to the western edge of the Rocky Mountains, through a
breathtakingly deep valley carved by the Snake River, to Idaho's only
seaport.<br><br>The Port of Lewiston is the inland most seaport on the
West Coast, more than 400 miles from the Pacific Ocean. A series of dams
and locks completed on the Snake in 1975 allow ocean-based commerce to
be conducted here, and in two nearby ports in Washington state.<br><br>But
business has dropped sharply at the port, to 1970s levels, just in the
past year, prompting longtime critics to suggest that the port - which
gets about 20 percent of its $2.29 million annual budget from local
property taxes - may not be economically viable in the future.<br><br>The
chief critics are environmental groups which have been fighting for
years to have the four Snake River dams breached because they contend
the structures have decimated wild salmon runs.<br><br>Port director
David Doeringsfeld said the number of ships calling on Portland, Ore. -
where cargo from Lewiston is transferred to oceangoing vessels - has
been down the past couple of years because of the worldwide recession,
and that hurts his ability to ship.<br><br>"A lot of our customers have
had to truck containers to the ports of Seattle or Tacoma to be able to
find carriers to get to their customers overseas," Doeringsfeld said.<br><br>At
the same time, some of the port's traditional customers in the wood
products and grain industries have switched to truck transport
permanently.<br><br>Currently, the biggest categories of products
shipped in containers from the port are paper, dried peas, lentils and
grain. And not too much of those.<br><br>The port shipped 675,000 tons
of wheat in 2007, but had shipped just 388,000 tons by the end of
September this year. Perhaps more telling, the port shipped 12,545
containers in 2007, but only 2,325 so far this year.<br><br>Business is
about to take another dive, as river shipping shuts down on Dec. 1 for
three months of maintenance work on the locks.<br><br>Sam Mace of Save
Our Wild Salmon, a coalition of dozens of environmental groups, said the
port provides relatively few jobs, despite the enormous costs to the
iconic fish.<br><br>After laying off three workers last year, the port
has just seven employees, Doeringsfeld said, although more people work
for private businesses at the site.<br><br>Mace said people are starting to question long-held assumptions that the port makes economic sense.<br><br>The
government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in past years in
an effort to save salmon. That includes building giant fish ladders to
allow the salmon to swim up and through the dams, or using tanker trucks
to drive fish around the structures during their migration to the
ocean.<br><br>The spending was justified on the grounds that the port was a big economic engine, Mace said.<br><br>"There
is a growing recognition that it's time to do a more honest economic
analysis of what the Snake River could provide Lewiston and Clarkston
when free-flowing," Mace said. Major benefits would include thriving
commercial, recreational and tribal fishing for salmon, which would
provide far more jobs and money than the Port of Lewiston, and the
nearby ports of Clarkston and Wilma in Washington, Mace said.<br><br>Port
supporters acknowledged the business outlook is grim in the near term.
But the port will survive, said Jerry Klemm of Lewiston, who is head of
the Lewiston-Clarkston Chamber of Commerce natural resource committee,
and also a port commissioner.<br><br>Klemm said there was skepticism locally when the port was proposed in the 1950s.<br><br>"Now
that we have an economy, locally and regionally, that depends on river
navigation for subsistence, it is very important to us," Klemm said.
"We'll make it through. It will be lean."<br><br>The survival of the
four dams is a flashpoint of Northwest politics, pitting environmentally
minded Democrats against business-friendly Republicans. President
George W. Bush declared the dams were safe under his watch. But the
Obama administration has reopened study of the Bush plan to protect
salmon, raising the possibility the dams could be breached.<br><br>Threats to the dams don't sit well with business groups that have banded together as Northwest River Partners.<br><br>"River
transport is the 'Prius' of getting goods to market," said Terry
Flores, director of the group in Portland. "And it keeps 700,000 trucks
off our highways."<br><br>Doeringsfeld predicted Lewiston's business
would rebound as more ships return to Portland. Using the rivers is two
to three times cheaper than shipping a load by truck, he said.<br><br>The
port is also seeking new business, most famously a project to accept
more than 200 pieces of giant oil refinery equipment made in South
Korea. The equipment would be shipped to Lewiston and loaded on special
transporters for trucking to the massive Kearl Oil Sands project in
Alberta, Canada.<br><br>The problem is that the equipment is so huge the
trucks take up both lanes of scenic U.S. 12 and need nine days to
travel through Idaho and Montana into Canada. Getting special permits
for the loads is tied up in court.<br><br>Doeringsfeld and Idaho Gov.
Butch Otter are enthusiastic supporters of the shipments, saying they
will generate needed business for the place Otter likes to call the
Idaho Seaport at Lewiston.<br><br>"These loads are coming through at a good time for us, financially speaking," Klemm said, if they are approved.<br><br><br></div><br>
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