Louisiana should position itself to reap the benefits of an expanded Panama Canal, panel says
Jen DeGregorio
The Times-Picayune
April 07, 2009
New Orleans City Council members heard from a panel of lawmakers and business leaders on Tuesday about ways Louisiana could benefit from an expansion of the Panama Canal.
With only five years to go before the expanded canal is set to open for business and flood the Gulf of Mexico with new shipping traffic, Councilman Arnie Fielkow said the council should support any plans that could make Louisiana ports stand out among their competitors.
"The greatest asset that we have in this community is the Mississippi River," said Fielkow, chair of the council's economic development committee, which hosted Tuesday's forum.
Panel members agreed about the need for a strategy to lure cargo from the canal, saying the initiative would create new jobs and tax dollars. But there was some contention about how best to accomplish the task.
Sen. A.G. Crowe, R-Slidell, said the state's best bet would be to construct a megaport along Southwest Pass, near the mouth of the river. The world's largest cargo ships are too deep for the river, he said, and a port closer to open water would be the only hope to draw their cargo into Louisiana.
Such a facility could benefit the Port of New Orleans, he said, with smaller ships taking cargo from larger vessels to ferry upriver for distribution by rail or truck.
"It's business we don't have right now," said Crowe, who drafted legislation last year to create the Louisiana International Deep Water Gulf Transfer Terminal Authority, a state body that would govern a megaport near the river's mouth.
The complex could be up and running in as soon as two years, according to Crowe, who said a company has already proposed spending as much as $2 billion to build a new port on state-owned land along Southwest Pass. Louisiana Economic Development is considering the idea, and a formal proposal should be made public next month, he said.
"That's a very, very bullish thing to happen," Crowe said of the proposal.
Gary LaGrange, president and CEO of the Port of New Orleans, said a larger port near the mouth of the river should not come at the expense of cargo docks in New Orleans.
LaGrange is lobbying for a $500 million expansion of the Napoleon Avenue Container Terminal, which he said would be needed to handle any new boxed cargo that may arise from Crowe's proposed transfer terminal.
"If you don't do that, you will lose your market edge .¥.¥. for when the Panama Canal does open," said LaGrange.
At least one other plan for a major cargo facility has been discussed in recent months. Sea Point, a transfer terminal proposed off the coast of Venice, would use an offshore platform to move containers from ships to barges that would then take the cargo up the Mississippi.
Eugene Schreiber, managing director of the World Trade Center of New Orleans, a group that promotes trade with the city, described the fragmented plans as a downfall for the state.
The "lack of coordinated planning" has thwarted progress on any single effort to improve the state's port infrastructure, Schreiber said.
Andrea St. Paul Bland, vice president of business development for the economic development group GNO Inc., hopes that her group will address that problem with a report that would suggest ways for Louisiana to leverage its port assets to compete with other states.
The study, which will assess world shipping trends as well as state port facilities, should be complete in June, St. Paul Bland said.
Fielkow said he hoped that GNO would apprise the Legislature even sooner about any findings that could help lawmakers decide how best to address the Panama Canal expansion.
Although the city will play a supporting role by lobbying for the ports, state lawmakers will have to take the lead, Feilkow said.
"We are a little behind the timeline," Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis, the only other council member at Tuesday's hearing, said of the state's efforts to capitalize on the canal expansion.