[ErickMontreal]

Sydney joining ports play

The Cape Breton Post

Anyone praying for port expansion and development in Sydney Harbour within the next few years should put in a good word for Halifax at the same time. The malaise currently enveloping the Port of Halifax is perhaps the biggest psychological block at the moment to full commitment to the idea of Nova Scotia cashing in on shifting world trade patterns.

Sydney Harbour, despite its obvious assets as a shipping port, dramatically demonstrated when it served as the assembly point for slow convoys in the Second World War, is third in Nova Scotia’s pecking order for the so-called Atlantic Gateway strategy. When it gets mentioned at all, Sydney is after Halifax and the Strait of Canso.

However, if it’s possible to have two winners then it’s possible to have three. Besides, the Strait’s perceived No. 2 spot in this queue owes much to the announcement back in June of a $350-million plan for a container port and transshipment facility at Melford, on the mainland side. While that’s a promising initiative there has yet to be a firm investment commitment to developing that greenfield site. Taking into account the infrastructure already in place in Sydney, the Strait has not yet secured its place as next in line to develop a seaside terminal in Nova Scotia.

Sydney Harbour could move ahead into container handling with a lot less initial investment at Sydport.

In any case, everything’s still in play as far as one can tell, and bureaucrats involved in negotiating an Atlantic Gateway funding framework with the federal government say project money will be allocated on merit.

Harbour channel dredging, to deepen the minimum bottom from about 13 metres to 17, tops the wish list for Sydney, according to a preview last week of the $325,000 Ports of Sydney Master Plan. In the opinion of planner Jim Hunt of TEC Inc., a Maryland company developing the plan, the $25 million to $35 million cost of dredging is justified and would pay off in jobs and investment. The plan scopes out a potential for up to 8,500 jobs from increased cruise ship and cargo business and up to $300 million in local wages. Clearly it’s a prize worth going for.

The plan envisions a container terminal and a second cruise ship dock.

The dredging project has been promoted for years, even seeming close to federal approval at one time only to become another dusty scheme on the shelf for returning Sydney Harbour to its wartime glory.

Convincing government to fund the project may be no easier now except that there is going to be a pot of money for transportation infrastructure once Ottawa and the Atlantic governments get around to signing and announcing the deal.

The dredging cost of $30 million isn’t a huge sum on the scale of port development schemes but the initial Atlantic Gateway focus seems likely to be on market development rather than infrastructure investment. The Port of Halifax is half-idle, and cargo traffic actually declined there in the first six months of this year despite all the hype about the Asian trade boom.

It’s up to Halifax right now to prove that the opportunity is real and thus to convince government bean-counters that port investment on the east coast will pay off. Here’s hoping for good fortune over the next year for the Port of Halifax.