Picton Terminals has a new name, Doornekamp Lines. The shipping company’s new website also says it offers “Eastern Ontario’s newest mode of transportation.”

Let’s never mind that a face launched a thousand ships in the Bronze Age. Or that ships were invented long, long before the wheel. I’m sure the Loyalists who settled Prince Edward County in the late eighteenth century would be chuffed to hear that moving around by boat is still news.

What is “new” are Doornekamp Lines’s expansion plans, which are also, apparently, green.

The shipping industry is repositioning itself within federal “Green Marine” strategies for creating low carbon transportation networks. Shipping across the Great Lakes, for example, is in the spotlight. The Ontario government has plans for an Ontario Marine Transportation Strategy, announced in the March 2023 budget. Various local ports, from Hamilton to Oshawa to Picton, are vying for key roles.

Yes, shipping has somewhat lower emissions than transport by rail or truck — when taken by itself. It is always part of what is called an intermodal network, though, with connections to rail and road. Transport efficiencies must be calculated from origin to destination, not just from port to port.

And so for those expansion plans. “Phase One” of the Doornekamp Lines action plan launched in March 2021, with the acquisition of the container ship Peyton Lynn C. At 141 metres long, this ship has a capacity of 855 TEU (the measure of the number of 20-foot containers a ship can hold). It has a draft of about 8 metres. It might just slide into Picton Bay, in other words, which has a depth of 9 or 10 metres.

(Doornekamplines.ca)

This ship was promptly chartered by a company called Spliethoff for its Cleveland Europe Express service. Perhaps that service, too, should be renamed, as the Cleveland — Picton — Europe Express. It is not clear whether it ships containers to Picton, or if it just wants to. This is, however, the plan detailed in the Doornekamp Lines “Phase Two” shipping map, pictured.

To that end, apparently, Doornekamp Lines has added a couple more container ships to its fleet. Spokesperson Sandy Berg confirmed to the Tradewinds shipping journal that it purchased the Blystad group’s Songa Lynx (built 2006), now christened the Valencia Elizabeth D, in December 2021. Valued at $20 million, the ship is similar to the Peyton Lynn: 148 metres, 1,118 TEU, draught of about 8 metres. This ship has been trading since April 2022 between Vancouver and Singapore. A third ship, the 925 TEU Vivienne Sheri D (built 2009), was also added in 2021, and also contracted out.

These three ships are the kind used in short sea and inland shipping of cargo containers from the huge ocean-goers that run between container ports in Halifax or Vancouver, Europe, and Asia. Generally, such cargo is moved inland by rail or truck. Doornekamp Lines, however, is offering up its port at Picton as a gateway to the St. Lawrence Seaway on the one side and to ports across the Great Lakes on the other.

Never mind that County council, at a meeting held at the Regent Theatre in October 2020, denied the Terminals’ application for re-zoning so it could run container and cruise ships from its property. Doornekamp Lines has advertised “aggressive” expansion plans ever since. It claims to have invested close to $30 million in its marine industry initiatives, including computerizing its ship loading, and retrofitting to store thousands of containers. And acquiring three container ships.

If only it were a legal container port. Picton Bay could connect Toronto and other key ports on the Great Lakes to Europe. Standing in the way, alas, are government regulations — at, it seems, every level. In an important Ontario Superior Court ruling in 2018, Picton Terminals was allowed to continue its historic open cargo shipping operations — and nothing more.

“We still have some challenges to get over. A lot of them have to do with government hurdles,” Doornekamp Lines owner Ben Doornekamp told the Chamber of Marine Commerce. “It’s not as easy as you think getting over some of these hurdles. But we’re getting there. We are fortunate to be working with government staff who are helping us to stickhandle the many government agencies and policies to ensure regulatory compliance.”

Mr. Doornekamp says his company intends to capitalize on new shipping opportunities as both the federal and provincial governments try to structure greener supply routes. We worry that Doornekamp Lines plans to “stickhandle” the new Green Marine policies to bring these massive container ships to Picton Bay, no matter how awkward, costly, and inefficient such an enterprise. No matter that there are other ports that qualify as true intermodal ports, directly connected to rail and road, and on open waters, not tiny harbours.

As we await the outcome of the talks between Picton Terminals and the County, that Regent Theatre council meeting, where the Terminals’ rezoning application was denied, appears more and more clearly to have been a watershed moment in a history of conflict. Let’s hope it holds.