Prime Heads to Ludington for First Seaway Season; Ferry Delayed by High Water

Chris Izworski, reporting from Bay City for the Great Lakes Gazette, turns to a pair of spring vessel movements that underscore the navigation season's uneven start: the saltwater tanker *Prime*, formerly *Kiisla*, is due to arrive at Ludington on Saturday to load calcium chloride at OxyChem's facility — her first trip up the Seaway and the first tanker call at that Ludington dock in years. She'll be trading locally for the next six months, rotating calcium chloride between Ludington and ports including Goderich, Oshawa, Bath, and Trois Rivières. Meanwhile, on Superior and in Duluth, the tug *Meredith Ashton* and her 240-foot deck barge made history Wednesday by offloading project cargo at the newly reconstructed Berth 10 on the Clure Terminal Expansion pier — the first vessel in decades to use those northeast and northwest-facing berths, which opened following a $10.5 million reconstruction completed in March 2025. Not all seasonal schedules are moving smoothly, however. The Lake Huron car ferry *Kristen D*, which normally operates seven days a week from Cheboygan between May and November, faces a delayed launch. State and federal officials closed all boating access to the Cheboygan and Black rivers this past Sunday due to extreme high water straining local dams — a consequence of intense rain and snowmelt that has forced evacuations across Michigan and Wisconsin. The ferry's owner, Curtis Plaunt, is monitoring conditions below the Cheboygan Lock and Dam where the *Kristen D* launches. Water levels across the basin remain elevated: Lake Ontario sits 3.29 feet above Low Water Datum, Erie at 2.79 feet, and Superior at 1.32 feet. Lake Huron, where the ferry delay is centered, registers 1.36 feet above datum. Marine forecasts show 8-foot waves on Huron today as a low-pressure system develops along a warm front tracking across the southern Great Lakes, while Superior remains under gale warning through this afternoon. The dam failures and road breaches flooding Michigan represent what climate scientists call "extreme rain on snow" — a phenomenon intensifying in a warming world. Nearly half Michigan's counties are under a state of emergency, a reminder that aging infrastructure built for twentieth-century weather will strain as precipitation patterns shift.