Granholm, Stupak Champions For New Super Lock in Sault
Michigan Politics By

George Weeks

Occasionally, a Michigan governor comes up with a grandiose scheme that really clicks, but comes to pass long after the governor leaves office.

So it was with Gov. Chase S. Osborn, who after leaving office in 1913, lobbied President Franklin D. Roosevelt to build a bridge linking Michigan's peninsulas. Gov. G. Mennen "Soapy" Williams took up the cause; heard it criticized as "Soapy's Folly;" and saw the magnificent span completed in 1957.

So it was with first Gov. Stevens T. Mason, who at age 25 led Michigan to statehood and was one of our most extraordinary political figures. President Andrew Jackson way back then called our feisty guv "Young Hotspur." (Mason once punched an editor who called him "the boy governor.")

Mason, several weeks before Michigan was admitted to the union in 1837, called for the U.S. government to build a ship canal around the rapids at Sault Ste. Marie to connect Lakes Huron and Superior.

Long political debate followed, with prominent Americans saying it couldn't and shouldn't be built. As Michigan History Magazine notes in its cover story on the 150th anniversary of the locks, 19th century statesman and orator Henry Clay of Kentucky contended such a project "contemplates work beyond the remotest settlement in the United States, if not the moon."

In 1853, Gov. Robert McClelland signed a bill creating a commission to implement the canal-lock project. The next governor, Andrew Parsons, shuffled some paperwork on the project, calling it "one of the best of the kind in the world." The next governor, Kinsley Bingham, formally accepted the completed project, which in 1881 was transferred to the federal government, where it exists today.

Current Gov. Jennifer Granholm and U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Menominee, a champion of efforts to build the long-needed additional "super lock," were among the politicians scheduled to participate in last weekend's anniversary celebrations at Sault Ste. Marie, oldest city in Michigan and third oldest in the nation.

Building the locks was an historic engineering triumph and political struggle. But what about future? What are prospects for building the new $341.7 million super lock to supplement the 32-year-old Poe Lock, largest in the Western Hemisphere and busiest lock in the world?

It's mighty slow going. Congress authorized the new super lock in 1986. Congressional folks said last week it could be completed in 2016 if there is "realistic funding."

Michigan and other states, such as Illinois, are chipping in. Then-Gov. John Engler in 2001 signed legislation to create the Soo Locks Fund to meet Michigan's projected $14.1 million share of the non-federal portion of the project.

Currently, the Poe Lock is the only one capable of handling the large freighters. One alone can deliver enough iron ore to build 60,000 cars.

Why the need for a twin of the Poe Lock, which handles two-thirds of all freight going through the Soo Locks?

Says Stupak: "If the Poe Lock were ever rendered unusable due to a terrorist attack or natural disaster, it would halt commerce on the Great Lakes and these industries would be helpless."

Asked Friday if anybody is dragging feet on getting a new lock, Stupak said: "Yeah, the Corps of Engineers."

George Weeks is the political columnist for The Detroit News and is syndicated by Superior Features .