Business is booming at the Columbus-Lowndes County Port Authority.
On any given day, 30-ton steel coils from Severstal — as many as 50 at a time — are brought in by rail and loaded onto barges bound for Texas and Mexico. At Kinder Morgan, an automated crane lifts an annual average of 500,000 tons of scrap metal onto barges for transport. Logistics Services recently renewed a 10-year lease with the Port Authority.
Work continues at KiOR, which is slated to begin operations by the end of the year, converting wood chips and other plant materials into renewable crude oil. The facility’s expected product — 11 million gallons of fuel per year — was sold out before ground was broken on the $222 million plant.
But for the port’s business to continue to grow, it will have to expand, Port Director John Hardy told the Columbus Kiwanis Club Wednesday.
Of the 165 acres set aside for industrial development on both sides of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, only 15 acres remain. A 30-acre site at the port was recently leased to an undisclosed company, and work is expected to begin soon.
Now, Hardy and the five-member Port Authority Board are eying more than 100 acres of land in a remote part of Lowndes County. Though Hardy declined to name the location of the property, he said it would provide bigger tracts of land to court future industrial developers who need waterway access.
The problem, he said, is infrastructure. The east bank of the port is intermodal, providing access via water, road and railway. The west bank is currently served only by road and water, and most industries want access to rail also, Hardy said.
But it’s difficult to find significant amounts of acreage with the necessary infrastructure, especially since the land can’t be in a floodplain. It will be a slow process.
“The Port Board is trying to use its leverage so we can maybe control more land in the future on the river that can be developed for industrial clients the (Columbus-Lowndes Development) Link is talking to, and some want to be on the water,” he said. “Right now, we’re very limited in what we can offer.”
If additional property is obtained, the Board will seek funds from the Mississippi Department of Transportation and federal government programs administered by the Economic Development Administration. The Mississippi Legislature provides $3.8 million in grants per year to the state’s 16 ports scattered along the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico.
“It takes a lot of money to (expand),” Hardy said. “You have to do your homework and prove it’s economically viable.”
In the 1980s, it was a struggle for the port to attract industries, but things began gaining momentum the following decade, Hardy said. Now, with the arrival of Severstal and other port users, like the latest “crown jewel” — KiOR — things are going well.
“The Port Board is trying to use its resources to leverage so maybe we can control more land in the future on the river that we can develop for industrial clients (the Columbus-Lowndes Development) Link is talking to that want to be on water,” Hardy said. “Right now, we’re very limited in what we can offer.”
He credited Link CEO Joe Higgins with the influx of industry over the past few years.
“Joe’s been great for us,” Hardy said. “You can see the investment that’s taken place out there (at the port), and in a lot of it, he’s had a big hand. These are kind of exciting times. I hope we can keep it up.”
Carmen K. Sisson is the former news editor at The Dispatch.
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