Port NOLA Receives $13.5 Million For Terminal Design Work
The board of commissioners of the Port of New Orleans voted unanimously at the board’s August 24 meeting to authorize Brandy Christian, the port’s president and CEO, to officially accept $13.5 million from the state’s Capital Outlay Saving Fund for the Louisiana International Terminal project.
The funding was originally included in the state’s fiscal year 2024 budget. However, the funding was removed—along with hundreds of other amendments—just minutes before the Legislature had to vote on the budget in June.
At the time, Christian said it was a surprise and a disappointment that the funding for the terminal project “got caught up in politics at the last minute.” Port officials pointed out that the delay in funding in no way would delay the project.
In the two-plus months since, work has continued behind the scenes to restore the funding from the state’s Capital Outlay fund, and in an August 11 meeting of the state’s Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget (JLCB), port officials and Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a vocal supporter of the project, achieved just that.
During discussion over the budget item, La. Sen. Heather Cloud, who represents the central part of the state, asked La. Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne whether the JLCB actually had the authority to appropriate funding that the full Legislature chose not to. In response, Dardenne said he considered the omission more of an oversight than the will of the Legislature.
“Legally, you certainly have the ability to do it,” Dardenne said. “Procedurally, you have the ability to do it. And substantively, I think you ought to want to have the ability to do it to accomplish what, I think, everybody realizes was an inadvertent removal of this amount of money to help the port.”
Without further discussion, the joint budget committee approved the measure.
In presenting the resolution to accept the funds, Christian told the port’s board of commissioners that the additional $13.5 million in funding will allow the port to reach the 100 percent design threshold for the Louisiana International Terminal in St. Bernard Parish.“The project remains on track, and we continue to make great progress through the federal permitting process, with input from community stakeholders,” Christian said. “I would really like to take a moment to thank our state legislature and the governor for their support, and the board, in getting those funds allocated through the state capital outlay process.”
Walter Leger, vice chairman of the board, called the funding a “restatement of the commitment of the state legislature in support of the project.”
Joseph Toomy, chairman of the board, concurred, calling it an “emphatic restatement.”
During the same meeting, the board also authorized Christian to enter into an agreement with the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development to officially accept a $15 million grant from the state’s Port Construction and Development Priority Program for improvements connected to the Napoleon Avenue Wharf Modernization Project.
The Port NOLA board meeting followed a celebration earlier in the day for the official completion of a railyard expansion project at the New Orleans Public Belt Railroad’s France Road Railyard adjacent to the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal. The expansion, which will add an additional 220 car storage capacity to the yard, is part of an $18.2 million “New Orleans Gateway Rail Fluidity and Capacity Improvements Project.”
Port NOLA and the New Orleans Public Belt Railroad executed a “strategic alignment” in 2018, and in the years since, switching revenues for the public belt have increased more than 20 percent, and total operating income has grown by close to 300 percent.
The New Orleans Public Belt Railroad is a Class III railroad that connects all Class I railroads to the Port of New Orleans.
