Office of Naval Research - National Transportation Library

Figure 1 - U.S. Waterway Facilities by Geographic Region, 2007Geographic Distribution of the U.S.Waterway Facilities, 2007300025002000150010005000AtlanticGulfPacificGreat LakesInlandDeepw aterShallow WaterSource: Volpe Center-generated chart based on USACE, “The U.S. Waterway System – Transportation Facts”,Navigation Data Center, December 2007Two key points underscore the vast number of waterway facilities in the U.S., many of whichhave deepwater channels: Neither adequate channel depth nor access to waterway facilitiesin a region necessarily lead to active commercial use. Of the 5,066 deepwater terminals inthe U.S., only a fraction – approximately 300 terminals (or 6 percent) – handles significantvolumes of commercial traffic. About half of these 300 deepwater terminals are identified as“selected” by the Waterborne Commerce Report. These selected terminals handle more than1,000,000 tons of cargo annually. Of these, there are approximately 55 ports that handlemore than 10,000,000 tons annually, and have a channel depth of over 40 feet. In all, onlyabout half of all waterway facilities (5,279) are currently used for commercial cargo carriage.The remaining facilities are either used for passenger transportation (3,319 facilities) or are“unused” (986 facilities.) 71-3 Domestic Commercial Cargo TrafficUnlike the 19 th century shipping conditions, when a larger share of the nation’s cargotonnage was carried in domestic coastal traffic than in ocean-borne foreign trade, the volumeof cargo carried for domestic trade today accounts for less than 40 percent of the total cargovolume. Today, foreign trade accounts for sixty two percent of the marine transportationshipments (1.6 billion short tons) and domestic trade for the remaining 38 percent (1 billionshort tons).The volume of commercial cargo shipped today through the marine transportation system(MTS) – with shipments amounting to 2.6 billion short tons of commercial freight – has7 USACE, The U.S. Waterway System – Transportation Facts”, Navigation Data Center, December 2007;http://www.iwr.usace.army.mil/NDC/factcard/fc07/factcard.pdfONR SSS Final Report 10