NOLA.com: A fight is brewing over St. Bernard Parish road link as opponents try to stop port terminal
Opponents of the St. Bernard container terminal say the project's costs have ballooned even before the cost of building a new road link.
A battle is brewing between supporters of the Port of New Orleans' planned container ship terminal in St. Bernard Parish and local leaders opposed to the multibillion-dollar project.
The new skirmish is all about how trucks will get to and from the terminal at Violet.
The port has long argued that the downriver terminal and supporting infrastructure — particularly a road link from the port site to the interstate network 10 miles away — is needed in order to stem the region's bleeding of container ship market share to rival Gulf Coast ports.
In December, Port of New Orleans' new CEO, Beth Ann Branch, said that a new road to connect the port to the interstate will be as important as the terminal itself, which is known as the Louisiana International Terminal, or LIT. She said they plan to start construction on the terminal later this year and hope the road will start this year, too, so it can be completed in time for the opening of the first phase of the terminal in 2028.
Opponents have argued that LIT would damage the environment in St. Bernard and disrupt their way of life. They've pushed for an alternative on the west bank of in Plaquemines Parish, and say that LIT would be way too expensive.
Indeed, Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser, who is an opponent of LIT, wrote to Branch on April 29 demanding to know the current estimated cost to build the terminal, which he said he now believes is billions more than originally planned.
The terminal's backers and opponents are now awaiting a long overdue report from the New Orleans Regional Planning Commission, which will set out the options for building the road to handle the port's truck traffic. Regional planning officials said they just completed the report and will make it available to the public on May 14.
The Regional Planning Commission has narrowed its short list of alternative routes over the past year from several dozen to three, which will be made public when their report is published later this month.
One of the main objections raised by opponents of the new terminal is that it would cause traffic mayhem in the parish, whose two main roads, East Judge Perez Drive and East St. Bernard Highway, already struggle with congestion and would be overwhelmed by the thousands of trucks expected to travel to and from the terminal daily.
Christopher Kane, a lawyer for the Port of New Orleans, told the Louisiana House Transportation Committee last month that the most expensive and longest of the three would cost about $800 million, with the shortest expected to cost about half that. He said the port plans to find a private sector partner to build the road, which would be funded by tolls paid by the truck companies.
The longest likely alternative is a road that starts at the port terminal in Violet and runs for most of its nine miles as an elevated expressway over the Central Wetlands Unit, north of the Forty Arpent Canal Road, connecting to Paris Road just before the Interstate-510 junction.
The cheaper option likely would be just under five miles long and would begin just past Meraux and connect to Paris Road at the railway overpass, about five miles south of the interstate junction. That would require trucks to use existing roads for about eight miles of the journey to the interstate network.
The battle lines on the road, and the broader port project, are now aligning for and against legislation that is up for debate in the Louisiana Legislature.
At the April House committee meeting, state Rep. Mark Wright, R-Covington, introduced House Bill 616 that would allow the port to engage in a public-private partnership for the road project. Wright said the bill is necessary to expedite the process of finding a partner for the toll road, and to avoid repeating what happened six years ago with Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.
The airport's new, $1 billion terminal was completed in November 2019 but the connector road to Interstate-10 wasn't finished because of dithering and infighting among legislators.
"We had a first class airport built in New Orleans but we didn't have a road ready and that was disgusting, quite frankly," Wright told the committee. "We want to do this the right way with private financing involved so we're not in that situation again."
Land grab?
A St. Bernard delegation at the committee meeting, which included Parish President Louis Pomes, all seven members of the parish council, District Attorney Perry Nicosia and others, all voiced their opposition to Wright's bill.
State Rep. Mike Bayham, a Republican who represents St. Bernard, led the delegation opposed to Wright's bill and argued that it is seeking to push through land acquisitions to facilitate the road.
"They are trying to grab land that is nowhere near the banks of the river," Bayham told the committee. " We are all united in our opposition to this bill and the (container) port in general."
The committee voted to hold Wright's bill for further discussion. State Rep. Phillip Tarver, R-Lake Charles, said he would like to know where Gov. Jeff Landry's administration stands on the question before he makes up his mind.
Former Gov. John Bel Edwards was a supporter of the LIT and it has earned the support of both of Louisiana's U.S. senators, who've helped to secure more than $300 million in federal funds for the project, including $15 million for the road.
The port in its statement said Wright's bill is needed "to provide a clear mechanism to procure the desired road for the benefit of St. Bernard parish and to support the Louisiana International Terminal." Branch said in December that the downriver terminal must be built or the region will not be able to compete in the container-shipping market.
Where does Landry stand?
Last year, Landry established the Louisiana Port and Waterways Investment Commission with the express mission of curbing bickering among the various port fiefdoms and to work out an overall strategy. The commission, chaired by Landry appointee Marc Hebert, hasn't weighed in on the downriver container terminal issue.
In March, when the Louisiana Gateway Terminal, the new name for the Plaquemines Port, made a proposal for a joint venture with the Port of New Orleans for a west bank terminal, Julia Fisher-Cormier, Landry's commissioner of the Office of Multimodal Commerce, said the administration is currently neutral on the rival proposals.
Landry hasn't responded directly to requests for comment on the rival terminals. His close advisor on business matters, Shane Guidry, has expressed support for LIT.
Without a commitment either way, local St. Bernard leaders have continued to mount a campaign against the port.
The St. Bernard Parish government and the district attorney have three pending lawsuits against the Port of New Orleans, alleging it has overstepped its legal authority and that building the port would cause irreparable environmental damage.
In his letter to Branch, Nungesser argued that costs for the project have gotten out of hand.
"At the previous estimate of $1.8 billion, LIT already would be the most expensive container terminal ever built in the U.S.," Nungesser wrote in the letter, a copy of which was provided by his office. "It has come to my attention that the newest cost estimate...has more than doubled to $3.9 billion."
The higher cost estimate also has been cited by former U.S. Sen. David Vitter, who is a lobbyist for the rival Plaquemines Parish port project.
Neither Vitter nor Nungesser have indicated where the new estimate came from. The Port of New Orleans declined a public records request to produce its latest LIT cost estimate, citing commercially sensitive negotiations with private sector partners Ports America and Mediterranean Shipping Company.
A statement provided by port spokesperson Kimberly Curth said the $3.9 billion figure was "wholly inaccurate."
In his letter to Branch, Nungesser said he was calling on the Landry administration to withhold any support and funds for LIT until the full project cost estimates are divulged and fully evaluated.
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