Manitowoc has a pretty busy, diversified port for a smaller lakeshore community.
City of Manitowoc Harbor Master Paul Braun tells Seehafer News the 235,000 tons of product going out in 2021 was actually down from the previous year.
“2020 was 410,000 tons which coincides with record high water levels that year,” he explained. “And then of course had a lot of revetment stone that was being shipped out to other areas of the Great Lakes to protect the shoreline.”
Braun said they’ve been tracking tonnage numbers since 1993 and the last 29-year average is approximately 350,000 tons.
“So, we’re less than the average but again it’s very cyclical, based on high lake levels and the need for revetment stone,” he said. “But the one misleading thing with these reports is it only talks about tonnage.so if you have a lot of bulk products, if it’s salt or rock, or coal, those numbers are skewed.”
The local harbor master explains it doesn’t really talk about the value of the products.
Braun explained that “...when Crane 38 left last Memorial Day weekend that really doesn’t get reflected in here because even though it doesn’t get huge tonnage it is of huge value. Or, for Burger Boat if there’s a yacht built in port and it’s transferred out the tonnage reflects a (major) value, but the tonnage isn’t there.”
He also told us an Army Corps of Engineers economist in Chicago was “surprised” at the amount of unique products that come out of the Manitowoc port, ranging from wind turbine towers, to cement, to Burger Boat yachts, to Kona Cranes, to Briess Malting.
