Senator Debbie Stabenow visited the Soo Locks this week

SAULT STE. MARIE— Sen. Debbie Stabenow visited Sault Ste. Marie to discuss the importance of the Soo Locks development project.

Early Wednesday morning, Stabenow toured through the Soo Locks, meeting with many local political and business leaders of the Soo.

The Soo Locks are a major shipping lane for the Great Lakes, and are a huge supporter of the local economy, supporting thousands of jobs. Every year, more than 7,000 ships pass through the locks, most of them freighters transporting steel, iron and other raw material across the Great Lakes.

Currently there is only one large-sized lock available for freighter use, the Poe Lock, meaning that any shutdown of the lock would close the locks to all large-sized freighters, and could cause billions in lost revenue.

For the past several years, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been working to establish a new lock, that can help increase traffic without overwhelming any specific lock. The new lock, which has not been named yet, is a more than 10-year long project that will cost billions in total and create thousands of jobs.

The senator is a major supporter of the new Soo Locks construction project, as it is an important part of not just local economy, but state economy as well, as shipping lanes affect many related businesses. Stabenow helped secure investments in the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Water Resources Development Act.

"We have been able to secure majority of the funding about $1.6 billion," said Stabenow. "There's another 800 million to go, and every year we're putting money in the budget."

The new lock will be an important part of the local infrastructure, as there is currently no large back-up lock available if the current one in use needs repair.

More: New Lock at the Soo project continues in second phase

Stabenow comes to see the Soo Locks once a year to receive a progress report on the ongoing project. Construction on the project is underway, and other projects in the area have been created to support it, including temporary housing for all of the workers involved.

"In addition to being so important long term for the economy, it creates thousands of jobs," said Stabenow. "Including all aspects of it, it's tens of thousands of jobs, there's even temporary housing coming in as they move into the next part of the project."

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More: Temporary housing to host hundreds of Soo Locks workers

The current schedule of the new lock has it being completed around the year 2030.

"This has been a project that is involved many twists and turns, but we're doing it. We've secured two thirds of the money and we're going to make sure it gets done," said Stabenow.

— Contact Brendan Wiesner: BWiesner@Sooeveningnews.com

This article originally appeared on The Sault News: Major Soo Locks project supporter Senator Stabenow visited the locks