Canal Lockout

Fall is the peak export season along the shores of the St. Lawrence Seaway, where grain and industrial goods leave the American and Canadian heartland on the way to destinations around the world. Last week the artery linking Lake Ontario and Lake Erie was suddenly choked off when a concrete wall in one of the Welland Canal's eight locks collapsed. A section of lock No. 7 slammed into the side of the Liberian-registered Furia, a ship carrying 16,000 tons of wheat from Milwaukee to Alexandria, Egypt. Nine other vessels were trapped inside the canal; 21 were stranded on the Lake Ontario side waiting to enter; an additional eight coming from such ports as Detroit, Chicago and Toledo queued up on the Lake Erie side, stalled on their way east.

The mishap could not have come at a worse time for grain exporters. Their shipping season ends Dec. 16, shortly before the seaway freezes up, although on occasion the seaway has been kept open an extra week or two when weather permitted. For Thunder Bay, Ont., the world's largest grain-exporting port, a lengthy shutdown could imperil the delivery of 6 million tons of Canadian wheat and animal feed bound for the Soviet Union. At the port of Milwaukee, ( 20,000 tons of food destined for famine victims in Africa and India last week sat piled up on the docks. Supplies headed for Midwestern factories were also laid up. Three ships carrying gigantic stamping presses for a General Motors plant in Ohio sat on the Ontario side, unable to proceed to Cleveland for unloading.

Canada, which runs the seaway with the U.S., was blamed by some port directors for failing to maintain its side of the aging system. Opened in 1959 by President Eisenhower, who hailed it as an economic boon for the region, the seaway links the Atlantic Ocean, the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario to the rest of the Great Lakes. The seaway experienced a first catastrophe last year, when a lift bridge at Valleyfield, Que., jammed. That caused an 18-day shutdown and cost shippers more than $40 million in lost business. At an Ottawa press conference last week, William O'Neil, the president of the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority, dismissed suggestions that his facility may be falling apart. Said he: "We have had 25 years without any major calamity, so now we can't say the whole system is no good."

Eight hours after the wall collapsed, workers refilled lock No. 7 so the Furia could be floated out of the rubble. Gigantic braces were then installed to shore up what remained of the canal's retaining wall, and engineers assessed the damage. Authorities said that repairs could take between three and four weeks. Owners lose between $5,000 and $20,000 a day operating idle, loaded vessels, and some of them began furloughing crews and tying up their ships. Meanwhile, port directors feared that seaway customers might switch to East Coast and Gulf ports in the future. Said Duluth, Minn., Port Director Davis Halberg: "With bad problems two years in a row, it looks like we're going to have to resell the seaway to shippers all over again. That may not be easy."