California, Oregon and Washington have received a total of $9.6 million in grant funding from the federal government for a number of marine highway projects, the Maritime Administration (MARAD) announced Oct. 6. The funding is to help expand marine highway services on our nation’s navigable waterways to reduce congestion, alleviate supply chain bottlenecks and move goods more quickly from ships to shelves, MARAD said. Two West Coast projects are receiving funding. They are: M-5 Coastal Connector, which was awarded $5,550,000. The America’s Marine Highway Grant funds will go toward infrastructure upgrades at the Port of San Diego that will be…