An investment in cargo

Prince Rupert is a city of which few New Orleanians have ever heard, but the town’s partnership with the British Columbian Provincial (i.e. state) Government to build a modern container port in 2007 and to expand the China and Asian trade offers incredible lessons to the Port of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana.

Upon its new docks, gleaming $40 million (a piece) cargo container cranes greet rail cars as they klick-klack westward to the sea on what was once known as Canada’s Trunk Railway. These blue behemoth lifts loom above one of the deepest natural ports on Earth, just 90 miles from the Alaskan border, which never ices in winter thanks to the local microclimate. In fact, with a protected river port at a depth of nearly 115 feet in the channel, and 55 feet at the docks, Price Rupert’s dockage is remarkably similar to the depths found near St. Bernard Parish, where the Port of New Orleans seeks to build a container – cargo port south of its current docks (and before the low Mississippi River bridges).

Like Bienville, Price Rupert’s founder, Charles Hayes, dreamed that his town would become the major port that dominated North American trade. Lacking a massive Continental river system as the Crescent City, Hayes constructed the ending terminus of his railroad at Prince Rupert – which stretched diagonally across Canada and eventually reached Chicago.

Despite its natural advantages, the northern Canadian city remained trade backwater for ninety years, concentrating on canning fish and natural resources exportation until the provincial government of British Columbia saw its geographic potential. Prince Rupert’s port sits over 1,000 miles closer to Shanghai than Seattle. Cargo freighters save a day’s travel from China, thanks to the curvature of the Earth. The BC Legislative Assembly in Victoria appropriated billions of dollars to construct a state-of-the-art container port in 2007, and the now once sleepy town of 13,000 created 6,500 jobs (direct and indirect) in a province of 4.6 million people.

Now, miles of cargo containers load intermodally onto waiting trains in a fashion that even a casual observer from New Orleans could salivate as a possibility for our port’s own railroad, the Public Belt. Moreover, improving upon the Prince Rupert comparison, the NOLA Public Belt connects five different railway lines which web across the U.S. Historically, the Crescent City connected different freight rail companies as they crossed the Mississippi. A simple public commitment to back the Port of New Orleans’ plan to build a container port on open land in St. Bernard Parish, where the Crescent City Connection would not block the transit of major container vessels – currently barred by the low bridges from reaching the main Napoleon Avenue terminals – might make all the difference to the city’s long-term growth.

Let’s be blunt. The Napoleon Avenue terminal sits just too far up river – and too far past the Mississippi bridge – to be practical as a container port long-term. We need something completely new and up to date downriver in St. Bernard. Hence, the current plan floated by the Dock Board.

Just as Prince Rupert stands as the closest port to Shanghai on the West Coast, New Orleans in many ways is the closest port to China and Asia on the East Coast, thanks to the recently widened Panama Canal. Giant cargo vessels which used to have to go around Tierra del Fuego can now cross the Isthmus. They can come here, or they can travel to Houston. Ultimately, though, constructing the proposed cargo port is the electorate’s choice, as it will likely take a multi-parish direct tax to make it happen in a timely fashion. Probably a sales tax, as that is the most feasible to be put on the ballot, yet would the people of the five-parish metro region be willing to impose a tax upon themselves for this purpose?

To be sure, officials at the Port of New Orleans have not asked for such a tax as of yet. Nevertheless, rest assured, such a request will come. An attempt by our port to self-fund such a massive multi-billion dollar facility would take decades, years that would see cargo business permanently entrench itself in Houston or even Mobile.

Plus in exchange for a tax funding source, New Orleans can insist upon taking back it’s Riverfront, as Prince Rupert has, opening up a continuous park from the Audubon “fly” to the Garden District and Downtown. In addition, the general public could finally gain access to the Port’s restricted truckway expanding Tchoupitoulas into a four-lane road – easing many of the traffic problems Uptown and on the I-10.

Dockage charges rank as far cheaper at the Port of New Orleans than virtually any of the East Coast ports. We could market that New Orleans has more freight rail lines are better than Houston, but we have to do what British Columbia did – pay to build the Port. The fact is there is little legislative support for a metro New Orleans project by North Louisiana legislators, so we likely cannot count on the state as paymaster.

Therefore, are we willing to pay an additional quarter or half penny in sales tax? One that would not just be in Orleans and St. Bernard parishes, but to raise enough money would have to definitely include Jefferson and Plaquemines, possibly St. Tammany, and maybe even Terrebonne and Lafourche?

All of the metro would benefit from the rollover economic growth of a massive expansion of the Port. Are all willing to pay?

This article originally published in the July 1, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.