The Industrial Canal and Inner Harbor of New Orleans Part 7

Since the work was begun the Dock Board has received inquiries from a hundred or so large enterprises regarding the cost of a site on the ca.n.a.l. That they have not established there is due to the fact that the Ca.n.a.l has not yet been completed, and the Dock Board has announced no policy.

It is now working on that question with representatives of the a.s.sociation of Commerce, Joint Traffic Bureau, Clearing House a.s.sociation, Cotton Exchange, Board of Trade, and Steamship a.s.sociation.

There is no use trying to guess at what the policy will be. It is too big a problem, and must be worked out very carefully, with reference to a confusing tangle of cross-interests.

Two principles have already been categorically laid down by President Hudson and endorsed by the Dock Board at an open meeting of April 5, 1921, with the commercial and industrial interests of the city, planning for the policy of the Ca.n.a.l:

First, that the development of the Ca.n.a.l shall not be at the expense of the river. Wharf development will be pushed on the river to meet the legitimate commercial demands of the port. No one is to be forced on the Ca.n.a.l. That would hurt the port. It is not thought that such forced development would be necessary, and the Ca.n.a.l will be kept open for the specialized industries that can best use the co-ordination of the river, rail and maritime facilities.

Second, that the control of the property along the Ca.n.a.l, owned by the Dock Board, will not go out of the hands of the Board. There will be long-term leases--up to ninety-nine years, but no outright sale.

Furthermore, the private land on the other side of the Dock Board's property will not be allowed to be developed at the expense of the state's interests. So the frontage on the Ca.n.a.l will be developed before there is any extensive construction of lateral basins and slips.

What will be the rate charged for a site? Will it be based on the actual cost of the Ca.n.a.l and its maintenance? Or will the state consider it a business investment like a road or street, and charge the property owners thereon less than the cost of construction, collecting the difference in the general progress? That, too, is a question which calls for considerable study before it can be answered.

With the Industrial Ca.n.a.l open, sites available on long leases to business enterprise, and with our tax laws relating to the processes of industry and commerce revised and made more favorable, New Orleans will enter a period of expansion and development on a scale hardly yet dreamed of by her most far-visioned citizens, with enlarged profit and opportunity for all her people.

New taxable wealth will be created rapidly. New needs for taxable property will arise. The tax burden on all will be distributed more widely and when contrasted with the earning power of such property will become less and less of a burden.

This will be so because the water frontage through which the Ca.n.a.l is being created for the attraction of many enterprises which cannot locate on the river front, is all within the limits of the city of New Orleans.

With this Ca.n.a.l in operation, New Orleans will possess to the fullest degree the three great systems of port operation: Public ownership and operation of the river harbor facilities; public ownership of the land and private operation of facilities on the Industrial Ca.n.a.l; and private ownership of the land and private operation of the facilities on the new channel to the sea.

No other port in the country has the capacity for this trinity of port systems.

No other port possesses such a hinterland as is embraced within the Mississippi Valley, nor so extensive and so complete a system of easy-grade railroads and navigable waterways penetrating its hinterland.

No other port holds so strategic a position in the path of the new trade routes connecting the region of greatest productivity with the new markets of greatest promise in Latin-America and the Orient.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOCK GATE There are Ten Like This]

CONSTRUCTION COSTS AND CONTRACTORS.

Everything is relative. Looking at the total, some may think that the cost of the Industrial Ca.n.a.l is large. So it is--compared with the cost of an irrigation ditch through a 20-acre farm. But comparing the cost with the wealth it is invested to produce--has already begun to produce--it dwindles to a mere percentage. And a comparison of construction costs on the Industrial Ca.n.a.l with similar work done elsewhere during the same time is very much in favor of the former.

Witness the following figures shown in the books of the engineering department of the Dock Board:

Dredging, including the ca.n.a.l prism and the excavation of the sites of the bridge foundations, siphon and lock, averaged .2784 cents a cubic yard. The highest cost was in the lock section, from which 609,302 cubic yards were excavated at an average cost of .3796 cents a cubic yard. On the siphon and Florida Walk bridge section, including two other deep cuts, the 814,919 cubic yards excavated cost an average of .2607 cents a cubic yard. On the Louisville & Nashville bridge section, the 1,023,466 cubic yards excavated cost an average of .2363 cents a cubic yard. From there to the lake, 1,673,787 cubic yards, the average cost was .2411 cents. Dredging costs were below the original estimates when labor and supplies were 50 per cent cheaper.

The 90,000 cubic yards of concrete in the lock cost an average of $22.50 a cubic yard. This includes cost of material, mixing, building forms, pouring and stripping forms. Mixing and pouring, from the time the material was handled from the storehouse or pile, averaged $1.20 a cubic yard. It would be hard to find cheaper concrete on a work of similar magnitude anywhere, say the engineers.

On the siphon the concrete work cost more, because it was a subterranean job, with elaborate shaping. The price there was $35 a cubic yard, in place, including material and form work.

To drive the 17,000 bearing piles and 7,000 traveling piles on which the lock is floated, cost an average of 15 cents a running foot. This does not include the cost of the piling.

Construction steel cost .12 cents a pound, and erection around 4 cents.

These were standard prices.

The lock gates, weighing 5,285,000 pounds, cost $845,600, in place.

This does not include opening and closing machinery.

Three of the bascule bridges crossing the Ca.n.a.l, weighing 1,600,000 pounds each, cost $250,000 each, erected. The fourth bridge, near the lock, weighing 1,000,000 pounds, cost $200,000, erected. This is for superstructure only--it does not include the foundation.

The emergency dam bridge, weighing 350,373 pounds, and its 108,256 pounds of turning machinery, cost $96,728, in place. Hoisting machinery cost $40,000 more.

The eight girders of the emergency dam, weighing 90 tons each, at $240 a ton, cost $172,800.

Machinery for working the ten lock gates, the eight filling gates, and the six capstans--twenty-four 52-horse power electric motors--cost $21,479, f.o.b. New Orleans.

The plant for unwatering the lock, consisting of one pump with a capacity of 15,000 gallons a minute, and two with a capacity of 250 gallons each, cost, erected, $11,000.

Total mechanical equipment used on the Industrial Ca.n.a.l weighs 14,500 tons. Its cost, including power-house, electrical connections, etc., is $1,516,000.

Plant and equipment for building the Ca.n.a.l, including locomotives, cranes, piledrivers, dredges, tools, etc., cost $781,232. Depreciation, up to February, 1921, is set at $266,874, leaving a balance of $514,358, carried as a.s.sets. Much of this has already been sold, and more will be disposed of.

Following are the firms that executed contracts on the Industrial Ca.n.a.l:

OUTSIDE NEW ORLEANS.

Lock gates and emergency dam girders: McClintic-Marshall Construction Company, Pittsburg, Pa.; designed by Goldmark & Harris Company, New York.

Filling gates: Coffin Valve Company, Indian Orchard, Ma.s.s.

Miscellaneous valve equipment: Ludlow Valve Company, Troy, N.Y.

Capstans: American Engineering Company, Philadelphia, Pa.

Mooring posts: Shipbuilding Products Company, New York, N.Y.

Miter gate moving machines: Fawcus Machine Works, Pittsburg, Pa.

Motors, control boards and miscellaneous electrical equipment: General Electric Company, Schenectady, N.Y.

Bridge crane and bascule bridges: Bethlehem Steel Corporation, Steelton, Pa. Former designed by Goldmark & Harris Company, New York, N.Y.; latter, by Strauss Bascule Bridge Company, Chicago, Ill.

Steel sheet piling: Lackawanna Steel Company, Buffalo, New York.

Hoists and cranes: Orton & Steinbrenner, Huntington, Ind.; American Hoist and Derrick Company, St. Paul, Minn.

Conveyor equipment: Webster Company, Tiffany, Ohio; Barker-Greene Company, Aurora, Ill.

Woodworking machinery: Fay & Egan Company, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Pipe: U.S. Cast Iron Pipe Company, Birmingham, Ala.