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The Saint Lawrence Seaway ((フランス語:la Voie Maritime du Saint-Laurent)) is the common name for a system of locks, canals and channels that permit ocean-going vessels to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, as far inland as the western end of Lake Superior. The Seaway is named for the Saint Lawrence River, which flows from Lake Ontario to the Atlantic Ocean. Legally, the Seaway extends from Montreal, Quebec, to Lake Erie and includes the Welland Canal. This section upstream of the Seaway is not a continuous canal; rather, it consists of several stretches of navigable channels within the river, a number of locks, and canals along the banks of the St. Lawrence River to bypass several rapids and dams along the way. A number of the locks are managed by the Canadian Saint Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation, and others are managed by the American Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation, which together advertise the Seaway as part of "Highway H2O".〔http://www.hwyh2o.com/〕 The section of the river downstream of Montreal, which is fully within Canadian jurisdiction, is regulated by the offices of Transport Canada in the Port of Quebec. == History == The Saint Lawrence Seaway was preceded by a number of other canals. In 1871, locks on the Saint Lawrence allowed transit of vessels long, wide, and deep. The Welland Canal, constructed in 1830, at that time allowed transit of vessels long, wide, and deep, but it was generally too small to allow passage of larger ocean-going ships. The first proposals for a bi-national comprehensive deep waterway along the St. Lawrence were made in the 1890s. In the following decades, developers proposed a hydropower project as inseparable from the seaway; the various governments and seaway supporters believed that the deeper water to be created by the hydro project was necessary to make the seaway channels feasible for ocean-going ships. United States proposals for development up to and including the First World War met with little interest from the Canadian federal government. But the two national governments submitted St. Lawrence plans to a group for study. By the early 1920s, both ''The Wooten-Bowden Report'' and the International Joint Commission recommended the project. Although the Liberal Prime Minister Mackenzie King was reluctant to proceed, in part because of opposition to the project in Quebec, in 1932 he and the United States representative signed a treaty of intent. This treaty was submitted to the United States Senate in November 1932 and hearings continued until a vote was taken on March 14, 1934. The majority voted in favor of the treaty, but it failed to gain the necessary two-thirds vote for ratification. Subsequent attempts between the governments in the 1930s to forge an agreement came to naught due to opposition by the Ontario government of Mitchell Hepburn, and that of Quebec.. In 1936, John C. Beukema, head of the Great Lakes Harbors Association and a member of the Great Lakes Tidewater Commission, was among a delegation of eight from the Great Lakes states to meet at the White House with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to get his support of the Seaway concept. Beukema and St. Lawrence Seaway proponents were convinced that such a nautical link would lead to development of the communities and economies of the Great Lakes region by enabling ocean-going ships. In this period, grain exports to Europe were highly important to the national economy, along with other commodities. The negotiations on the treaty resumed in 1938 and by January 1940, substantial agreement was reached between Canada and the United States. By 1941, President Roosevelt and Prime Minister King made an executive agreement to build the joint hydro and navigation works, but this failed to receive the assent of Congress. Proposals for the seaway were met with resistance; primary opposition came from interests representing existing harbors on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and internal waterways, as well as from the railroads associations. The railroads carried freight and goods between the coastal ports and the Great Lakes cities. In the post-1945 years, proposals to introduce tolls to the Seaway were not sufficient to gain support by the U.S. Congress for the project. Growing impatient, and with Ontario desperate for the power to be generated by hydro-electricity, Canada began to consider "going it alone." This seized the imagination of Canadians, engendering a groundswell of St. Lawrence nationalism. Canadian Prime Minister Louis St-Laurent advised President Harry S. Truman on September 28, 1951 that Canada was unwilling to wait for the United States and would build a seaway alone; the Canadian Legislature authorized the founding of the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority on December 21 of that year. Fueled by this support, St-Laurent's administration decided over the course of 1951 and 1952 to construct the waterway alone, combined with the Moses-Saunders Power Dam. (This became the joint responsibility of Ontario and New York: as a hydro-power dam would change the water levels, it required bilateral cooperation). The International Joint Commission issued an order of approval for joint construction of the dam in October 1952. Senate debate on the bill began on January 12, 1953, and the bill emerged from the House of Representatives Committee of Public Works on February 22, 1954. It received approval by both the Senate and the House by May 1954. The first positive action to enlarge the seaway was taken on May 13, 1954 when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Wiley-Dondero Seaway Act〔http://www.greatlakesseawaynews.com/great-lakes-and-saint-lawrence/2009/5/13/wiley-dondero-act-brought-us-to-seaway-project-55-years-ago.html〕 to authorize joint construction and to establish the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation as the US authority. The need for cheap haulage of Quebec - Labrador iron ore was one of the arguments that finally swung the balance in favor of the seaway. Ground-breaking ceremonies took place in Massena, New York, on August 10, 1954. That year John C. Beukema was appointed by Eisenhower to the five-member St. Lawrence Seaway Advisory Board. In May 1957, the Connecting Channels Project was begun by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. By 1959, Beukema was on board the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter ''Maple'' for the first trip through the U.S. locks that opened up the Great Lakes to ocean-going ships. On April 25, 1959, large, deep-draft, ocean vessels began streaming to the heart of the North American continent through the seaway, a project which had been supported by every administration from Woodrow Wilson through Eisenhower. In the United States, Dr. N.R. Danelian (who was the Director of the 13-volume St. Lawrence Seaway Survey in the U.S. Department of Navigation (1932–1963)), worked with the U.S. Secretary of State on Canadian-United States issues regarding the Seaway, persevering through 15 years to gain passage by Congress of the Seaway Act. He later became President of the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Association to promote Seaway development to benefit the American Heartland. The Seaway was heavily promoted by the Eisenhower administration, who were concerned with the its locus of control.〔 The seaway opened in 1959 and cost C$470 million, $336.2 million of which was paid by the Canadian government. Queen Elizabeth II and President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally opened the Seaway with a short cruise aboard Royal Yacht ''Britannia'' after addressing crowds in St. Lambert, Quebec. 22,000 workers were employed at one time or another on the project, a 2,300-mile-long superhighway for ocean freighters.〔 Port of Milwaukee director Harry C. Brockel forecast just before the Seaway opened in 1959 that "The St. Lawrence Seaway will be the greatest single development of this century in its effects on Milwaukee's future growth and prosperity." Lester Olsen, president of the Milwaukee Association of Commerce, said, "The magnitude and potential of the St. Lawrence Seaway and the power project stir the imagination of the world."〔 The seaway's opening is often credited with making the Erie Canal obsolete, and causing the severe economic decline of several cities along the canal in Upstate New York. By the turn of the 20th century, the Erie Canal had already been largely supplanted by the railroads, which had been constructed across New York and could carry freight more quickly and cheaply. The economic decline of Upstate New York was precipitated by numerous factors, only some of which had to do with the St. Lawrence Seaway. Under the Canada Marine Act (1998), the Canadian portions of the Seaway were set up with a non-profit corporate structure; this legislation also introduced changes to the federal Ports.〔 〕 Great Lakes and Seaway shipping generates $3.4 billion in business revenue annually in the US. In 2002, ships moved 222 million tons of cargo per year. Overseas shipments, mostly of inbound steel and outbound grain, accounted for 15.4 million tons, 6.9% of the total cargo moved.〔(jsonline.com: "Sinking treasure," 30 Oct 2005 ), JSonline〕 In 2004, Seaway grain exports accounted for about 3.6% of the US' overseas grain shipments, according to the U.S. Grains Council. In a typical year, Seaway steel imports account for around 6% of the U.S. annual total. The toll revenue obtained from ocean vessels is about 25-30% of cargo revenue.〔 The Port of Duluth shipped just over 2.5 million metric tons of grain, which is less than the port typically moved in the decade before the Seaway opened Lake Superior to deep-draft oceangoing vessels in 1959.〔 International changes have affected shipping through the Seaway. Europe is no longer a major grain importer; big US export shipments are now going to South America, Asia and Africa. These destinations make Gulf and West Coast ports more critical to 21st-century grain exports. Referring to the Seaway project, a retired Iowa State University economics professor who specialized in transportation issues said, "It probably did make sense, at about the time it (the Seaway) was constructed and conceived, but since then everything has changed."〔 Certain Seaway users have been concerned about the low water levels of the Great Lakes that have occurred since 2010.〔(cbc.ca: "Great Lakes low water levels could cost $19B by 2050" ), CBC, 27 Jun 2014〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Saint Lawrence Seaway」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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