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Ahoy, Mate!
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St. Louis
could soon have a direct water shipping link to ocean ports.
By William Poe
Ask a barge man about a proposal to spend $300 to $500 million to
widen and improve Interstate 70 between St. Louis and Kansas City,
and he’ll tell you the St. Louis region can have more economic gain
at less cost by improving the Missouri River shipping channel and
bi-state port facilities.
“It would cost much, much less to keep the Missouri River open and
filling our port facilities with goods,” says Robert L. Wydra, executive
director of the Tri-City Regional Port District. “It would have
a greater economic impact, and it would be cheaper, more fuel efficient,
safer and less intrusive to the general public.”
Regional planners agree that the Missouri and Mississippi rivers
and the inland waterways barge industry associated with them are
natural resources that remain key to the region’s position as a
major transportation hub. River commerce here continues to have
a major impact on other industries and jobs. Tri-City operations
alone account for 1,000 jobs and an annual economic impact of $175
million, Wydra says. It is estimated that the economic impact of
the entire Port of St. Louis—70 miles of river flowing between Alton
and Jefferson County—is many times that of Tri-City. St. Louis is
the nation’s second largest river port and the 21st largest port
of any kind.
And, while the barge industry is a mature one with a steady-as-she-goes
annual growth rate of only about one percent, planners believe the
barge industry can have a larger impact with improved port facilities.
While the Port of St. Louis is ideally located and is the northern-most
ice-free port on the Mississippi River, port officials here have
long gazed warily southward to Memphis, which has made significant
improvements in port infrastructure over the past 20 years. Memphis
recently built a 3,200-acre industrial park around its port and
has been gaining river transportation market share at the expense
of the Port of St. Louis.
“The problem with the Port of St. Louis is its relative lack of
growth in reference to other cities,” especially Memphis, observes
Kevin S. Cahill, chief operating officer of the St. Louis Inner
City Competitive Alliance.
“The Port of St. Louis is losing market share in a growing economy,”
states a recent report of the St. Louis Inner City Competitive Assessment
and Strategy Project. “While competing Mississippi River System
ports have grown at an average annual rate of 3.1 percent, with
some ports growing at rates as high as 6.6 percent, the St. Louis
Port’s growth has been stagnant at a rate of 0.8 percent annually
over the same 10-year period.”
Wydra, who says Tri-City’s growth has been closer to three percent,
is spearheading plans to greatly expand and upgrade its port facilities.
Tri-City, which operates a harbor on the Chain of Rocks Canal near
Granite City, Ill. plans to invest between $15 million and $18 million
in public and private money in a new harbor south of Locks and Dam
27 and a total of $50 million on the harbor, plus a new intermodal
freight facility, warehouses and material handling systems on the
grounds of the former U.S. Army Charles Melvin Price Support Center.
Tri-City would retain 152 units of housing, a golf course, a day
care center and a couple of office buildings and incorporate all
of this into the Mid-America River Transportation Park.
Congress has already agreed to turn the property over to the port,
and Tri-City will finalize lease terms this year, Wydra says.
“We’re already heavy into reuse and development planning, including
engineering, financial and marketing evaluation,” Wydra says. He
estimates that the expanded facility would create 1,000 new jobs
and greatly increase the freight tonnage moving through the port.
“We’re going to design facilities that are going to be needed,”
Wydra notes.
Primary among those facilities will probably be a container yard
and establishment of direct ocean barge service to the Gulf of Mexico
and the Caribbean Sea, Wydra says.
“As the economy continues to globalize,” Wydra says, “growth will
be increasingly tied to international trade. If we can establish
direct service to the Gulf and the Caribbean, we can grow along
with these markets.”
Planners envision a new dock and wharf south of the locks, operation
of a distribution/warehousing complex, a multi-line rail link and
intermodal terminal facility, and an expanded foreign trade zone
to include targeted industrial, assembly and processing companies
that would operate facilities at the complex.
The most exciting component would be the capacity to handle oceangoing
barges, which cannot be accommodated above Locks and Dam 27, the
southern-most locks on the Mississippi. These “light aboard ship”
barges, about one-third the size of standard river barges, are light
enough to be pulled by crane from the river and stacked aboard ships.
Barges, loaded with bulk commodities such as grain or coal, would
be loaded at St. Louis and pushed down river to the Port of New
Orleans, where the entire barge can be pulled from the water and
hoisted to a waiting ship. Wydra says shippers save 15 percent when
they can avoid transferring cargo from barge to shipboard containers.
Down river from Tri-City, the City of St. Louis is also examining
ways to make needed repairs and upgrade its port facilities, says
Otis Williams, deputy director of the St. Louis Development Corp.,
of which the city’s Port Authority is a part. A recent study recommended
that the city improve port access, navigation and technology.
William V. Poe is principal of Poe Communications, a St. Louis
advertising and marketing communications firm. |
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