A container cargo vessel is tied up at the Port of New Orleans' Napoleon Avenue wharf. The Army Corps of Engineers and port want to deepen to 50 feet the access in the river for ships unloading at this and three other Uptown wharves.
- PHOTO FROM PORT OF NEW ORLEANS
3 min to read
Alyse Pfeil
Gov. Jeff Landry has named his picks for a powerful state board tasked with guiding millions of dollars in investments to the state’s collection of inland, coastal and deepwater ports.
The new Louisiana Ports and Waterways Investment Commission, created this spring in the recent legislative session, is comprised of several heads of various public ports in the state, state lawmakers, economic development leaders and others.
It will be led by Marc Hebert, Landry announced in a Wednesday statement. Hebert is a New Orleans attorney who specializes in international trade, maritime and supply chain logistics law.
In an interview, Hebert, who was a member of Landry’s infrastructure transition council, said the singular board will foster collaboration among the state’s 29 active ports, instead of the competition that has been common in years past. That collaboration will lead to economic investment, he said.
“This is about not growing each individual port, per se, but the ports collaborating with the use of state funds to determine how we are growing the entirety of the pie,” Hebert said.
For decades, Louisiana’s ports have been operated by independent governing boards — an anomaly when compared to most other coastal Southern states, according to a January audit report on Louisiana’s public ports system.
The lack of coordination has created issues. In recent years, Port of South Louisiana Executive Director Paul Matthews spearheaded a failed $445 million bid to buy the former Avondale shipyard, a deal that took other ports and state officials by surprise and ultimately served as a catalyst for the effort to coordinate port plans.
Lawmakers backed the new commission this spring and charged it with creating a master investment plan for all 29 ports, which all told, support one in five state jobs and helps move millions of barrels of oil and chemicals each year, among many other products.
Commission members
The commission includes Hebert and the following members:
- Office of Multimodal Commerce Commissioner Julia Fisher-Cormier, the commission’s vice-chair
- Port of South Louisiana Executive Director Paul Matthews
- Greater Lafourche Port Commission Executive Director Chett Chiasson
- Port of Iberia Executive Director Craig Romero
- Port of Morgan City Executive Director Raymond "Mac" Wade
- Lake Providence Port Deputy Director Bryant Killen
- Central Louisiana Regional Port Executive Director Ben Russo
- Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Susan Bourgeois
- Rep. Mark Wright, R-Covington
- Sen. Pat Connick, R-Marrero
- Baton Rouge attorney Carmack Blackmon, a longtime head of the Louisiana Railroads Association
- Randy Guillot, president of trucking firm Triple G Express and member of Louisiana Motor Transport Association and American Trucking Associations.
The Ports Association of Louisiana, whose voting members include every active public port in the state, voted on which ports would be nominated to the commission. The governor made appointments from PAL’s slate of nominees. New Orleans and Baton Rouge weren’t on that list.
But Cormier told lawmakers at a committee meeting Monday that the commission would convene “working groups,” one of which will include all of the deepwater ports.
Ronald Wendel, acting president and CEO of the Port of New Orleans, said his organization was excited to work the new commission.
“This collaboration will help us to collectively address critical issues facing our ports and enhance coordination across the state, ultimately driving progress and ensuring that Louisiana's maritime infrastructure supports future growth,” he said.
Wright, who sponsored the bill that created the commission, said Louisiana historically has not invested much in port infrastructure, despite being home to some of the biggest commercial waterways. The commission could change that, he said.
Possible strategies
The group is set to meet for the first time Sept. 12. The plan they ultimately create would need approval from Landry and the Legislature, and it’s unclear exactly what it would entail.
But one possibility, Hebert suggested this week, is this recommendation by the transition team’s infrastructure council: “A dedicated fund for the deepwater ports that was $100 million or more that would allow ample opportunity for the proper amount of annual investment.”
The state already has a $40 million fund, which would be used for non-deep water ports, per the council’s recommendation.
Another idea: At a legislative committee meeting on Monday, Fisher-Cormier, the vice chair, told a panel of lawmakers she envisioned that the state’s seven deepwater ports would submit their master plans, which the commission would then review and “merge” to “come up with a plan that we can market to the rest of the world.”
Such a plan would be in keeping with the reason the commission was convened in the first place. In an interview, Connick said that each port has strengths and weaknesses, and the commission offers a framework for them to work together as a team, rather than as “individual fiefdoms.”
“There’s too much parochialism in Louisiana,” he added. “Let’s work together as a unit — as a state — and go after industry as a team instead of individual ports going after the same thing.”
Editor’s note 8/15/24: An earlier version of this story listed as a board member Rep. Pat Connick. It has been updated to list him as Sen. Pat Connick.
Email Alyse Pfeil at alyse.pfeil@theadvocate.com.
Alyse Pfeil
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