PITTSBURGH - Mike Wallace is a riverman -- a 47-year-old, Texas-bred shipyard manager with a slight southern drawl and a famous news anchor's name.

Wally, as he's better known, has been riding the rivers or working shoreside since he was 17, helping to move cargo up and down aquatic highways from New Orleans to Pittsburgh for three decades.

His son, Cody, followed him into the business when he was 18 and still works there 12 years later. That's a fact Wally seemed pleased to mention while recently atop a harbor boat on the Ohio River, about an hour west of Pittsburgh.

"I got a son who's a relief captain at 30 years old," Wally said, struggling to be heard over the boat's engine, a gusty wind and the sound of water splashing off the hull below.

"There's a lot of potential out here," he said. "Good money, good life, as long as you can adjust to it."

Wally has seen significant change during his 30 years in the industry, but his son is likely to see even more.

Lagging shipping rates, a massive barge glut and coal shipments sinking to the lowest levels in decades have left companies like Wally's -- the Houston, Pennsylvania-based Campbell Transportation -- looking for new streams of revenue.

Other companies are using layoffs and mergers to stay afloat.

Additional obstacles include the deterioration of the aging locks and dams needed to keep rivers passable year-round.

For that reason, talk of the industry's future often turns to President Donald Trump and the Republican's much-heralded infrastructure plan.

While there is skepticism toward Trump's promise to bring back coal -- something that would certainly benefit the barge industry that hauls it -- there is a palpable hope that the president's spending plan might benefit federally managed and funded lock and dam projects across Pennsylvania and the nation. That would, in turn, help companies like Campbell and rivermen like Wally.

"Most people think about roadways, railways and runways, but I think about the river," Wally said from his perch outside the harbor boat's wheelhouse.

"It's a living artery. But I believe a lot of people don't even know it exists," he said. "I've been up and down the river since I was 17 years old and I've seen people that lived just over a levy or just over a dam that didn't even realize what's happening on the water behind them."

Wally said he hopes that's changing, as much for his sake as his son's.

Losing freight

As Wally spoke, he motioned back behind the boat toward Pittsburgh. It was the nearest major city and nearest major port at an hour to the east by car or 10 hours to the east by barge.

Like most American cities, Pittsburgh was built by, and, perhaps more crucially, because of its rivers.

Even today, some 200 years after its founding, Pittsburgh's rivers remain a central part of the city's mythos, a source of Twainian reverence for locals and a functioning vascular system for area industry.

Image via WikiCommons.

"Boat building -- in general -- really was Pittsburgh's first industry. Before iron, before glass, before anything else, there was boat building," said Dan Barr, an author, researcher and history professor at Robert Morris University.

"At first, it was mostly for passenger traffic, for settlers moving in using the Ohio River as their highway to the west (in the 1800s). And then when manufacturing (of glass, iron and steel) came in, especially before the railroads really got on track, everything was shipped by barges or by boat."

Barr said some of the biggest boatyards of the pre-Civil War era were located in or upstream of Pittsburgh, including one where the Liberty Bridge now lands on the north bank of the Monongahela River.

But while the rivers themselves have remained a constant through the years, little else has -- especially for the industries traditionally served by towboat and barge companies like Wally's.

Steel collapsed and coal continues to decline. The region's economy also continues to skew white collar or stagnate altogether.

All of this has translated into a decline in commercial activity on Pittsburgh's waterways, a trend seen in other river towns and regions nationwide.

In 2015, Pittsburgh-area rivers handled about 26 million tons of freight, down from 33 million in 2014 and 42 million tons 10 years earlier, according to the Port of Pittsburgh Commission.

"(Seven million) tons in a year is a pretty big drop in freight and I don't anticipate those numbers going up any (for 2016). I expect them to be worse," said Mary Ann Bucci, the commission's executive director.

Coal is a primary reason for the drop, with the fossil fuel once making up 75 percent of the total freight moved on area rivers like the Ohio, Monongahela and Allegheny, and now accounting for far less.

Campbell Transportation President Mike Monahan at the company's headquarters in Houston, Pa. on Thursday, March 8, 2017.

Mike Monahan, president of Campbell Transportation in Houston, Pa., said coal once made up over 70 percent of the company's business portfolio. It now makes up just 35 percent.

Where coal was once king, Campbell and other companies are finding a future in grain and liquid petroleum shipments, equipment rentals and other supplementary forms of revenue.

River transportation firms also see new businesses, such as the Shell cracker plant in Beaver County, as potential boons, while others want restrictions lifted on river shipments of fracking wastewater -- a scenario vehemently opposed by environmental groups.

In the meantime, and without consistent revenue streams, more Pittsburgh-area towboat and barge companies may be forced to downsize, shutter or merge with their competitors.

Some river transportation companies have already started to cut staff, though none of them wanted to comment on the record.

Many of those companies are privately held, and their headcounts and bottom lines are hard to track.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics also notes that employment numbers are hard to find industry-wide, with many employees working out of state across various waterways.

Multiple times during the last 15 years, employment figures for the water freight industry weren't reported at all for Pittsburgh. Some 368 workers were employed in 2010, according to the most recent regional statistics available.

Nationwide, the number of workers dropped from 23,737 in September 2015 to 22,429 in September 2016.

But employment numbers have remained relatively steady overall, according to David Murray, a writer with The Waterways Journal in St. Louis.

"Barge labor is so productive, per employee, that they can do a lot with a few [workers]," he said. "So when layoffs are necessary, they're not that much compared to other industries."

U.S. Department of Labor statistics show only slight fluctuations in "inland water freight transportation" employment numbers since 2012, the same year the industry began its post-recession recovery amid a boom in U.S. oil and gas production and a surge in grain shipment volumes. (The department also reports average pay for water freight workers in excess of $1,500 per week.)

The industry, in a rush to respond to that 2012 rebound, also built far too many new barges -- the long, flat vessels used to carry freight as it's moved along the water. That led to a supply that continues to outstrip demand and harm bottom lines.

"We have too many tank barges. We have too many cover barges, too many open hopper barges. We have oversupplied our market and we're in for a tough -- I think the next two to three years are going to be difficult," Monahan said.

He also believes more mergers and closures are likely.

"Some of the weaker companies are just not going to make it," Monahan added. "So they'll either sell out or follow some of the paths of other industries with companies that sometimes just have a bad business plan and go into bankruptcy."

A tug pushing 35 barges passes under the Vicksburg, Miss., bridges before making its way past oil removal operations near mile marker 436 on the Mississippi River, Jan. 31, 2013. More than 60 vessels and 900 barges have been cleared through the safety zone between mile marker 425 and mile marker 441. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Jonathan Lally.

Part of the triage or counter-strategy involves convincing the public that the implications aren't just nostalgic ones for historic river towns like Pittsburgh, but rather a matter of reduced competition and potentially greater costs being passed on to consumers.

It also involves convincing lawmakers to fund the infrastructure projects relied on by river transport firms.

One of the most reliable champions for the industry has been U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, the Scranton Democrat, who has repeatedly asked presidential administrations for increased funding for locks and dams.

Most recently, Casey sent Trump a letter on March 14 requesting at least $48 million for improvements on the lower Monongahela River.

"If the Lower Mon project is not funded, a work stoppage would cost the southwestern region of Pennsylvania millions of dollars and harm the economy," Casey wrote in the letter.

Though the industry welcomed Trump's pro-business, pro-infrastructure campaign rhetoric, the funding request for similar projects contained in the administration's first budget proposal may offer new reason to doubt his commitment, depending whom you ask.

"Politics is politics at the end of the day," Monahan said before Trump's budget plan was unveiled.

"And I tend to be more optimistic that we're going to find a way to do the right thing in this country long term, and that with the right bipartisan support we'll get there."

Murray, the Waterways Journal writer, describes the current state of the towboat and barge industry as "stable."

"People predicted in 1887 that the river (industry) would go away because of the railroads," and it didn't.

But not everyone is so sure now. Nor are they resigned to just wait and see.

Gateways and barriers

On the Ohio River, about an hour west of Pittsburgh, sits Newell, West Virginia.

Newell is home to Campbell Transportation's Congo Facility, a sprawling riverside complex and base of operations for a portion of the company's fleet. Campbell has 500 barges, 37 towboats, four shipyards and approximately 300 employees.

Many of them, along with the industry's advocates and lobbyists in Washington, D.C., share an "until-proven-otherwise" faith in Trump and his repeated vows to boost infrastructure spending while in office.

They point to lock and dam construction and repair projects overseen by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in states like Pennsylvania -- some of which are decades past due and perennially bogged down in studies, delays or piecemeal fixes -- as particularly worthy causes. Without them, the industry warns, boat traffic would halt and economic fallout would ensue.

For Campbell Transportation, the importance of locks and dams is almost impossible to overstate: They are gateways or barriers to the wider world depending on whether they're working properly. Even more crucially, they help maintain the minimum 9-foot water depth needed by barges and towboats to operate.

The structures remain a regular topic of conversation at Campbell's Congo Facility in West Virginia, and the industrial medium around which almost everything else -- shipping schedules, rates and profits -- revolves.

Campbell also routinely uses three of the oldest locks and dams in the nation, built along the lower Monongahela River near Pittsburgh in 1906, 1907 and 1932.

"All locks are built with a 50-year life expectancy," said Mary Ann Bucci of the Port of Pittsburgh Commission.

The Elizabeth locks and dam near Pittsburgh, at more than 100 years old, "shouldn't even be around anymore," Bucci added. "It can fail, and if it fails your river shuts down and unscheduled lock closures can be very costly to the barge industry or the recipients of freight in barges."

Meanwhile, Trump's initial 2018 budget proposal contains a $5 billion top-line request for the Army Corps' civil works mission -- the federal fund applied to lock and dam projects nationwide. The amount represents a $1 billion or 16 percent cut from the previous congressional appropriation.

It is still, however, a higher amount than was sought by prior presidential administrations, said Debra Calhoun, senior vice president with Waterways Council, Inc., an industry trade group.

"Congress usually plusses-up the funding for the Corps, which is why the administration traditionally low-balls their request," Calhoun explained. "We would expect the same thing to occur this appropriations cycle."

As a result, organizations like hers are increasing their outreach to members of Congress who can directly influence the budget and appropriations process.

In doing so, these organizations will tout the industry's safety record and comparatively minimal environmental impact. They'll also stress its already essential role in the movement of export goods like grain and oil, and the ability of barges to move more goods for less money and lower traffic on congested American highways.

The Army Corps of Engineers says one barge equals about 60 semi tractor-trailers, and one tow, which contains 15 barges, is equivalent to 225 jumbo railcars or 1,050 tractor-trailers.

With enough funding, Calhoun said 25 U.S. lock and dam projects already approved by Congress could be completed, "effectively modernizing the entire inland waterway system for the next 20 years."

She estimates the entire cost of that list, which includes the antiquated locks and dams on the lower Monongahela River near Pittsburgh, to be about $9 billion.

"We've been seeing woefully insufficient funding levels for the river navigation part of the Army Corps' mission for many, many years," Calhoun said.

Lenna Hawkins, a deputy district engineer with the Corps in Pittsburgh, acknowledged difficulty tackling the backlog with funding levels around the $5 billion currently proposed by the president.

"We don't seem to be making any headway," she said. "There is not enough funding to do the major construction projects. So when these things (locks and dams) are coming near the end of their life, we're now having to put a lot more money into maintenance just to keep them going."

And while fiscal conservatives argue that such projects are already among the most heavily subsidized in existence, the industry points to a diesel fuel tax paid by river companies as proof of its contribution. (That tax money, tens of millions of dollars annually, is matched by federal funds and applied to lock and dam projects nationwide.)

In a time of largely nebulous change for the industry, locks and dams also remain a physical and political focal point, the foundation on which all future industry rebounds could either be made or broken.

"As long as our infrastructure is kept in order with our locks and dams, the riverway is where the growth is," Wally said as his harbor boat departed the Congo Facility and headed west on the Ohio.

"From all your chemicals that make your vehicles, for your steel, for your coal, I mean, basically everything comes up and down the river one way or another."