What makes a good plan better?

 Board decision criteria  Navigation benefits  Hydropower benefits

 Perspectives: ◦ What can Lake Superior regulation affect? ◦ What shipments could reduce costs the most for the least change in water levels? ◦ Which water levels affect costs?  Analysis

Things to notice 1. Almost no difference on costs for shipments below Michigan-Huron because there’s no almost no difference in the levels on Lake Erie or Lake St. Clair

Things to notice 2. Some difference, not a lot, on shipments through the St. Marys River, where regulation plans can make a difference. Notice that preproject and 55Mod 48 are the worst. 3. Plan 130 is the second ranked plan, and not much better than Plan 129, which is ranked 10 th.

 SVM first slimmed down, removing all calculations outside of commercial navigation  Two plan structure reduced to one plan  Several variations on CN Subroutes worksheet defined to find when, where and why costs went up

Conn Channel finds the connecting channel depth East dock does just on of the many things CN SubRoutes does, it calculates the depth of water at the eastern dock for each trip category each month. CN SubRoutes calculates cost for each trip category each month by finding the controlling depth for that month, then looking up the cost for that depth on CN Costs And then cause looks at all three and fingers the body of water that was the shallowest along each trip. All the “Ds” here represent Lake Superior. Of course, these are trips on just Lake Superior, so that’s no surprise.

 Knowing for each month and trip category which body of water limits loading can provide a statistical portrait of what’s driving costs Violet shading indicates routes affected by Lake Superior or St. Marys River

 Loads for trips from Lake Superior to Michigan- Huron are affected most often by depths at the Lake Michigan dock, then the Lake Superior dock, and some at the SW Pier (not much at U.S. Slip or Rock Cut) Violet shading indicates routes affected by Lake Superior or St. Marys River

 There aren’t many trips to or from Lake St. Clair  There are many trips between Lake Superior and Lake Erie (these include trips beyond Erie),most limited by Lake Superior or Lake Erie dock depths. Again, some at SW Pier, not many at US Slip or Rock Cut. Violet shading indicates routes affected by Lake Superior or St. Marys River

 In the 109 years of simulated 77A water levels, navigation costs range from $2,816,290,162 to $2,955,652,867, a difference of 5%.  That includes shipments that go through the St Marys and those that do not.  Does a good navigation year mean Lake Superior was high? St. Marys River flows were high?

 Ranked each year – average water levels in Superior, MH, flows in St Marys and Costs.  Rank 1 = highest for water, lowest for costs  Best year was 1988, worst year was 1966

St. Marys rank vs. Cost Rank Lowest cost year (1) left Highest flows (1) bottom Some high flow years have low costs And some have high costs Some low flow years have high costs And a couple low flow years have low costs R 2 = 0.19

St. Marys rank vs. Cost Rank R 2 = 0.19 Superior rank vs. Cost Rank R 2 = 0.71

St. Marys rank vs. Cost Rank R 2 = 0.19 Superior rank vs. Cost Rank R 2 = 0.71 MH vs. Cost Rank R 2 = 0.97