MARQUETTE, Mich. (WLUC) – It’s a vital part of the Great Lakes region’s economy, but it’s easy to forget about the freighters that pass silently by us on Lake Superior.
At The Holiday Inn in Marquette on Monday evening, The Economic Club of Marquette County hosted a speaker from Interlake Maritime Services who wants to bring shipping to the front of your mind. IMS Chief Operating Officer Brendan O’Connor hopes attendees at Monday’s meeting take away a recognition that shipping and the industrial base in the Great Lakes is absolutely necessary for both national and financial security.
“Most people don’t realize that Michigan would have somewhere like a 22% or 23% unemployment rate if the locks at Sault Ste. Marie were to close,” O’Connor said. “There’s no more environmentally responsible way, in the major cargo moving options, than aboard a ship. We can move a ton of cargo more than 600 miles on one gallon of fuel.”
O’Connor says it would take 2,800 trucks to move what one 1000-foot ship can carry in a single voyage.
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