[StBernard] Shipping interests pushing for MR-GO

[Westley Annis]

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Shipping interests pushing for MR-GO
But it faces huge obstacles as a deep-draft channel 
Friday, September 22, 2006
By Matthew Brown
West Bank bureau 

More than 40 years after completion of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet,
backers of the embattled waterway say an economic windfall that has been
promised since before its construction is almost at hand -- if only the
channel is restored as a shipping lane. 

The political environment increasingly is stacked against that possibility.
On Thursday, Mayor Ray Nagin's administration joined the state and St.
Bernard Parish in asking for the Gulf Outlet, or MR-GO, to be closed to
deep-draft vessels. And at the insistence of Congress, the Army Corps of
Engineers is drafting a closure plan for the waterway, blamed for worsening
Hurricane Katrina's pounding of New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish. 

Despite the long odds, business groups and shipping interests are
maneuvering to persuade the federal government to again dredge the channel
to accommodate deep-draft vessels. 

This time, they claim, it could be done right: Navigable gates could be
built to block storm surge and end the 76-mile channel's history of
destruction of surrounding wetlands. And despite the disappointing payoff on
the hundreds of millions of dollars poured into the federal project over
four decades, channel backers say it could at last realize its economic
potential. 

Global trade is booming. New offshore oil fields are set to open. And other
ports on the Gulf Coast are jammed up. The time for the MR-GO, they say, has
finally arrived. 

"We've got an opportunity, for once, to be competitive," said David Kearney,
vice president of The Kearney Companies, which operates several warehouses
along the Industrial Canal, where the MR-GO enters New Orleans. "Just
closing it arbitrarily would be a knee-jerk reaction to something we have
known to be a problem for a long time." 


'Time to act' 


Ships have had limited use of the MR-GO since Katrina reduced its minimum
depth from 40 feet to about 22 feet. In November, Congress turned down the
corps' request for money for emergency dredging. Since then traffic has been
limited largely to fishing boats, barges, oil industry service vessels and
other shallow-draft ships. 

Critics of the channel say their opposition goes far beyond its past
economic failures. They see it as the culprit in hundreds of deaths in St.
Bernard, eastern New Orleans and the 9th Ward. Katrina's surge overwhelmed
levees along the channel in St. Bernard and funneled through the upper reach
of the MR-GO to breach levees along the Industrial Canal. 

Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said in a recent interview that as part of its
closure plan, the corps "can look at everything under the sun, but as a
practical matter that issue has been decided." 

On Thursday, Nagin's economic development chief, Donna Addkison, wrote a
letter to the corps saying "the outlet should be closed" to deep-draft
vessels. 

"Discussion of the closing of this outlet has continued for too long. Now is
the time to act," Addkison wrote. 

Another obstacle facing channel backers is a pending federal lawsuit calling
for its closure. Plaintiffs include the St. Bernard Parish Council and
Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti. 


Big plans 


Yet representatives of businesses and shipping interests have not given up
their push. In a series of presentations to corps officials during the past
two months, along with behind-the-scenes lobbying, they have laid out their
plea for restoring the waterway to at least a 28-foot depth. 

Their arguments echo claims made when MR-GO was conceived in the 1950s. At
the time, it was promoted as a centerpiece in New Orleans' dream to be the
"Gateway to the Americas": a hub for international shipping traffic that
would propel the region onto the global stage. 

Now, it's being touted as part of a "Gulf Gateway" strategy in which the
Port of New Orleans could rival competing facilities in Houston; Mobile,
Ala.; Los Angeles; Miami and New York to grab a significant slice of the
United States' growing trade with Asia. 

Much of that hoped-for increase in shipping would have to come in along the
Mississippi River. Even at 28 feet deep, the MR-GO could not handle the
latest "megaships" that have drafts of 40 feet or more. Kearney said the
Industrial Canal and MR-GO could take spillover traffic, particularly the
smaller ships typically used for trade with Central and South America. 

"Absolutely protect people, protect the environment," he said. "But we've
got infrastructure that's already in place. It needs some help from
destruction that Katrina has caused, but most ports would kill to have it." 

As Congress considers opening vast new areas of the eastern Gulf of Mexico
to offshore drilling, the orientation of the MR-GO, which runs southeast
from the city into Breton Sound, could make New Orleans and St. Bernard an
attractive staging ground for energy companies, said Bruce Thompson,
president of Thompson Equipment Co. 

Thompson and several other former members of the Bring New Orleans Back
Commission have been pushing their own plan for addressing the channel's
threat to public safety and the environment. 

A storm surge gate could be built at the upper reach of the outlet where it
approaches the city, similar to the corps' plans for that area. A weir could
be built across the MR-GO at Bayou la Loutre, with a permanent notch of 8 to
10 feet deep. That would allow unimpeded sportfishing and oil industry
service boat traffic. 

A 28-foot gate at the Bayou la Loutre site would let larger ships through.
But the gate could be kept closed most of the time to block the flow of
saltwater from the Gulf that is blamed for killing an estimated 27,000 acres
of marsh in the area. 

"We can have protection and we can have the environment and we can have
commerce," said Billy Marchal, one of the authors of the plan. 


Paying the bill 


A New Orleans dredging company estimates it would cost $6.3 million to
restore the channel to 28 feet deep. Returning it to its pre-Katrina depth
would cost about $27 million, said Ancil Taylor, vice president for the C.F.
Bean dredging company. 

If that dredging occurs and the anticipated shipping traffic never
materializes, the gate at Bayou la Loutre could simply stay shut, Thompson
said. He argued building the structure only to have it go unused still would
be cheaper than a $375 million relocation package Vitter has proposed for
Industrial Canal businesses. 

Port of New Orleans officials have acknowledged the channel played a
diminishing role in New Orleans shipping industry in recent years. In 2004,
large-ship traffic had dropped to 224 vessels carrying 1.3 million tons of
cargo -- roughly equal to the tonnage when the MR-GO first opened in 1963. 

Meanwhile, the cost of maintenance had soared to $16.1 million a year by
2004, translating into more than $71,000 per large ship. 


Patience gone 


The port, long considered the channel's biggest champion, no longer publicly
backs a return to deep draft. As a state agency, it has fallen in line with
the policy of Gov. Kathleen Blanco, who favors closure and cash from the
federal government to help affected businesses relocate. 

Whether the state would support a shallower draft to allow barges to use the
MR-GO has not been revealed. In St. Bernard, officials and residents say
even that would be too much. 

"St. Bernard Parish has never realized any positive benefits from the MR-GO,
nor do we want to wait around to see if it may happen in the future," said
council member Joey DiFatta. "After 45 years of the MR-GO, we don't have 45
minutes to wait for anything positive. We have experienced only many
negatives, to the tune of 145 residents drowned or dead." 

Marchal said he recognizes the MR-GO is "an emotional issue" for those who
blame it for the loss of their homes. But he said the region would be robbed
of a chance to at last realize the channel's potential if that sentiment
prevails. 

"The people who are so emotional about it do not take the time to understand
how you can accommodate deep-draft navigation. The economic story has not
yet come out," he said. 

. . . . . . . 

Matthew Brown can be reached at mbrown at timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3784. 

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Billy Marchal
504-756-7830
awmarchal at cox.net
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THE KEARNEY COMPANIES, INC.
4000 France Road Parkway
New Orleans, LA 70126-6153
Tel: 504.831.0266
Fax: 504.831.7669
info at kearneycompanies.com
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David Kearney (504) 283-1817 311 W Robert E Lee Blvd,New Orleans, LA 70124

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