4
Business View Magazine
1950. To allow for navigation, in 1963, the Army Corps
of Engineers began implementing a system of chan-
nels, locks, and dams, in order to compensate for a
drop of 420 feet between Tulsa and the Mississippi
River, as well as to connect the many reservoirs along
the length of the Arkansas River. The first section, run-
ning to Little Rock, opened in January, 1969.
In 1970, following Congress’ mandate that several
principal cities along the waterway would be required
to build ports, Tulsa embarked on the creation of a
multi-modal shipping complex and a 2,000-acre in-
dustrial park at the head of the waterway’s 445-mile
navigation route. The first barge to reach the Port of
Catoosa arrived in early 1971, and today, the Port is
one of the largest, most inland river ports in the United
States. It hosts a diverse list of 70 companies that em-
ploy over 3,000 people. In an average year, some 13
million tons of cargo is transported on the McClellan-
Kerr by barge; 2.7 million tons move in and out of Ca-
toosa, alone. Numerous industries, including fertilizer
companies and industrial gas suppliers utilize water
transport to ship bulk freight ranging from sand and
rock, to fertilizer, wheat, raw steel, refined petroleum
products, and sophisticated, petrochemical process-
ing equipment.
“Our country has 25,000 miles of inland waterway,”
says Portiss. “And, as a consequence, our waterway
highway enables us to move product from here to Min-
neapolis/St. Paul; Chicago; up the Ohio River as far as
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; up to Sioux City Iowa; and, of
course, down to the Gulf and over to Brownsville, Texas
and/or around the coast of Florida, following the Intra-
coastal Waterway up to Pennsylvania, where we ship a
lot of project-related cargo. And of course you have the
import/export market. We’re sitting in the grain belt of
the U.S., so a tremendous amount of our grain is going
to go for export. New Orleans is a spring-wheat market.
With the opening of the waterway, we gave our farmers
