WASHINGTON — For 81 years, the Delta Queen riverboat cruised the nation’s waterways carrying overnight passengers who included statesmen, soldiers and steamboat stalwarts. Then Congress failed to renew its fire-safety exemption.
As a result, the popular paddle-wheeler has spent the past two years docked as a floating hotel in Chattanooga, Tenn.
But congressional turnover in the November elections resulted in a new chairman for the House Transportation Committee, and that could get the Delta Queen moving again.
“The effort to revive the Delta Queen looks far more promising than it did about a year ago, when the historic steamboat was given up for dead by most people as far as plying the waters of our nation’s heartland,” said Lee Powell, executive director of the Mississippi Delta Grassroots Caucus, which works on economic development for Arkansas and seven other states.
The Delta Queen has operated as a tourist attraction and hotel since losing its exemption in 2008, and it faces a separate, but related, issue that will affect its future.
The Delta Queen, completed in 1927, is America’s last remaining overnight paddle wheeled steamboat. It began its career traveling the Sacramento River between San Francisco and Sacramento, Calif., along with its twin vessel, the Delta King, now docked as a hotel and restaurant in Sacramento.
During World War II, both steamboats ferried troops in San Francisco Bay for the U.S. Navy, and both later served as emergency hospital transports.
After the war, the Delta Queen set out on a 29-day trip covering 5,261 miles that took it through the Panama Canal to the Mississippi River. After some reconditioning, it operated on the Mississippi and its tributaries, including cruises along the Arkansas and Ohio rivers.
Its Mississippi River stops included Helena, and it made Memphis-to-Little Rock trips on the Arkansas River. Over the years, its passengers included three presidents - Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman and Jimmy Carter.
In 1970, the Delta Queen was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and in 1989, it was designated a National Historic Landmark.
SAFETY EXEMPTION
But the riverboat ran into rough water in 2008, when Congress did not renew its exemption to the 1966 Safety of Life at Sea Act, which prohibits wooden vessels from carrying more than 50 passengers on overnight trips.
Though the Delta Queen’s owner had installed sprinklers, replaced much of the structure with flame-resistant wood and trained the crew in emergency evacuation procedures, Democratic Rep. James Oberstar of Minnesota, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, cited passenger safety concerns in opposing its exemption renewal. The Coast Guard echoed his concerns, and the Delta Queen was taken off the river.
But in November, Oberstar lost his re-election bid, and the new House Transportation chairman, Republican Rep. John Mica of Florida, is a longtime Delta Queen supporter. He has said he would support reinstating the safety exemption.
Republican Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas said he is “very much in favor” of reinstating the exemption and returning the boat to the waterways.
“This structure is so important for the people of our country to experience,” Boozman said. “It takes us back to the early days of our country and lets us experience how early Americans traveled.”
In 2008, then-Rep. Boozman and Democratic Rep.Mike Ross of Arkansas had co-sponsored a bill to extend the Delta Queen’s exemption for 10 years. Ross continues to support the exemption.
“The Delta Queen represents a rich part of American history and serves as a reminder of the times of Mark Twain and steamboat dominance in the United States,” said Ross, whose 4th District includes portions of the Mississippi Delta. “Allowing the Delta Queen to travel up and down the Mississippi River with passengers will help reinvigorate tourism and create jobs in the Delta region, including here in Arkansas.”
Arkansas Republican Rep. Rick Crawford, a member of the House Transportation Committee, also sees renewed travel by the Delta Queen as a way to create jobs and encourage economic development.
“It is pivotal in these economic times to create an environment where small businesses can operate successfully,” said Crawford, whose district includes Helena-WestHelena. “The Delta Queen is a perfect example of how overregulation by the government is hindering economic growth.”
Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas agreed that “boats like that are good for tourism.”
Powell, the Delta caucus director, said “it might not be a huge amount of money, but impoverished places like Helena-West Helena can use every extra penny they can get.”
He noted that the Delta Queen has supporters on both sides of the aisle in Congress - among them House Speaker John Boehner and Rep. Steve Chabot, both Republicans with districts near the Ohio River, and Rep. William Clay, a Democrat whose district includes St. Louis, a Mississippi River city.
Powell said even President Barack Obama, when he was a senator from Illinois, a Mississippi River border state, supported the exemption for the Delta Queen.
UP FOR SALE
But the federal exemption is only one obstacle for the riverboat.
“Currently, the Delta Queen is for sale,” said Vanessa Bloy, public relations director for Ambassadors International Inc., the Seattle cruise-line company that owns it. And with its ownership unsettled, the effort to renew the exemption is on hold.
Bloy would not disclose how many bids were submitted for the Delta Queen or from whom. But two groups have expressed interest in it. One wants to keep it in Chattanooga and continue operating it as a hotel. The other wants to move it to New Orleans.
Hank Wolpert, managing director of Colliers International Hotels in Dallas, which is handling the sale, said other bids in addition to those two were submitted by the Nov. 19, 2010, deadline.
“We are working with several groups,” said Wolpert, who added that it could be 30 to 45 days before the matter is settled.
Some bidders want to return the Delta Queen to the waterways, others want to keep it as a hotel, and still others envision some “other nice tourism use,” he said. Those plans are a consideration in the sale, he added. “The company,” Bloy said, “is interested in seeing [that] the Delta Queen’s rich heritage be maintained and celebrated.”
Powell added that “the Delta Queen has been called the Statue of Liberty of middle America. It is the last of the great steamboats of the Mark Twain style. Its greatest importance is its role as a historic treasure.”
Front Section, Pages 1 on 03/14/2011