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Dredging a channel proves dicey

Why is Mosaic Co. for it? Savings. Why is TECO Energy against it? Possible complications.

By STEVE HUETTEL
Published June 25, 2005

TAMPA - Two corporate heavyweights with long business ties are battling over a seemingly mundane maritime construction project.

After a decade of federal studies and engineering, Congress is poised to start funding expansion of a shipping channel that leads to Tampa Electric Co.'s Big Bend power plant in south Hillsborough County.

Crop nutrition giant Mosaic Co. is pushing for the project. Mosaic ships fertilizer and phosphate rock from a site near the power plant, and expanding the channel would let the company save money by using larger vessels for overseas trade, spokesman Gray Gordon said.

But the project faces a formidable foe: TECO Energy. The parent of Tampa Electric, TECO has a shipping subsidiary whose vessels take coal from the Mississippi River to fuel Big Bend and return with bulk cargo.

TECO Transport said the expanded channel would be barely wide enough for the ships Mosaic wants to use, making it more likely such situations as bad weather could complicate its use. Those vessels would delay TECO's ships, TECO Transport president Sal Litrico said, leading to increased costs that could mean higher rates for Tampa Electric customers.

A House bill that funds various federal departments includes $4-million for the Army Corps of Engineers to start construction on the $22-million project.

The Senate hasn't passed a comparable bill, but Harry Glenn, a spokesman for Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Indian Shores, said the chamber is likely to fund the project. President Bush's budget included $5-million for the channel.

Executives of both companies, including TECO Energy president John Ramil, have lobbied local members of Congress on the issue.

Otherwise, they're keeping a low profile, perhaps because the companies have close connections. Mosaic is among Tampa Electric's biggest customers. TECO Transport's primary cargo out of Tampa Bay is phosphate rock mined by Mosaic for its fertilizer plants near New Orleans.

"We're not trying to bump heads with Mosaic," Litrico said. "We have a tough situation."

The Tampa Port Authority has a stake in the outcome. The public agency owns 150 acres near Big Bend called Port Redwing and is looking for tenants.

At 200 feet wide and 34 feet deep, the channel is big enough for several potential customers, port director Richard Wainio said. But digging it to 250 feet across and 41 feet deep would let the agency cast a bigger net for tenants, he said.

Federal dredging projects move at a glacial pace, requiring years of studies on environmental effects and navigational issues. Then local projects must compete for limited dollars.

The Big Bend channel expansion could be sent back for another long review or simply die if money is removed from the budget this year, Wainio said.

"If (funds) were pulled out, I wouldn't want to bet on where the project's going," he said. "It's not like you can pull it out this year and put it back next year."

The project became eligible for federal funding in 1998. But the problem became finding local money, about a third of the cost, that was a requirement of using the federal cash. TECO wasn't interested, and phosphate producer IMC Global, which owned a berth near Big Bend, was in financial distress.

Last fall, IMC merged with the fertilizer division of Cargill Inc. to form Mosaic. Executives at the new company saw a chance to save money shipping locally produced fertilizer in larger vessels from Big Bend.

Arriving last March, Wainio examined the project. Facing as much as $6-million for the local share, he decided the port authority had more pressing needs. But the agency would act as project sponsor, a federal requirement, if Mosaic paid the local portion, he told the company.

"We verbally told him we will do it," said Gordon, the Mosaic spokesman. A letter is forthcoming, he said.

TECO's biggest objection, Litrico said, is that the channel wouldn't be widened enough for the ships Mosaic intends to use: Panamax class vessels as large as 754 feet long and 106 feet wide.

The proposed 250-foot channel width is "the absolute minimum" for that size ship, the Tampa Bay Pilots Association wrote to a Mosaic executive.

The harbor pilots, who direct foreign-flagged ships through Tampa Bay, would not take Panamax ships through the channel when wind speeds exceed 17 mph, the letter said.

If one of those ships got held up at the Mosaic dock, Litrico said, TECO Transport's vessels would be delayed until the winds calmed.

"As the channel is proposed to be constructed, we know we will run into significant delays," he said. "It will increase our costs and put us in a position to ask (customers) for an increase. And they'll pass that on to their customers."

Steve Huettel can be reached at huettel@sptimes.com or 813 226-3384.

[Last modified June 25, 2005, 00:34:16]