Prime Arrives at Ludington; High Water Delays Ferry Season

Chris Izworski, reporting from Bay City for the Great Lakes Gazette, notes that the saltwater tanker Prime is due to arrive at Ludington today to load calcium chloride at OxyChem's facility—marking the first tanker call there in years. The former Kiisla, on her inaugural voyage up the Seaway, will spend the next six months trading locally, shuttling calcium chloride between Ludington and ports including Goderich, Oshawa, Bath, and Trois Rivières. Meanwhile, the tug Meredith Ashton and her 240-foot deck barge made headlines this week as the first vessel to dock at the newly reconstructed Berth 10 on Superior's Clure Terminal Expansion pier, offloading the first of four large project-cargo pieces. Spring high water is already reshaping the navigation calendar. Officials closed all boating access to the Cheboygan and Black rivers and connecting lakes on Sunday due to swollen conditions from rain and snowmelt straining local dams—a situation that threatens to delay the seasonal opening of the carferry Kristen D, which normally launches from Cheboygan in May. Lake levels remain well above datum across the system: Ontario stands 3.30 feet above low water, Erie at 2.58 feet, and Michigan at 2.15 feet, with only gentle to moderate seas forecast through the weekend. The extreme rain-on-snow event that overwhelmed Michigan and Wisconsin dams is emblematic of the climate shifts reshaping Great Lakes hydrology. The Supreme Court's recent unanimous ruling backing Michigan Attorney General Nessel's jurisdiction in the Line 5 pipeline case also underscores growing environmental scrutiny of aging infrastructure near the lakes—a timely reminder as this navigation season unfolds under conditions that test both vessels and the systems that support them.