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| River port in line for $35M grant from feds |
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Posted: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 9:01 pm
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By JOHN BRANNON
Messenger Staff Reporter
This holiday season, Christmas may not arrive until January for officials and other proponents of the Cates Landing River Port project near Tiptonville.
That’s when they learn if their application for a $35 million grant — no pay-back, no local matching funds required — from the U.S. Department of Transportation is approved.
The grant would pay for building the port dock, a small warehouse, an on-site rail, the connecting rail between the port’s industrial park and Ken-Tenn Railroad and other elements of the port’s infrastructure.
Mission
Jimmy Williamson, manager of Dyersburg Electric System, is also chairman of the Northwest Tennessee Port Authority.
The Northwest Tennessee Port Authority is jointly sponsored by Dyer, Lake and Obion counties. It is described as “a public, nonprofit corporation whose purpose is to construct and operate a Mississippi River Port at Cates Landing in northern Lake County.”
The port will consist of a deep-water port — 14 feet — on the bank of an oxbow on the east side of the Mississippi River. The overall facility would include a 1,000-acre industrial park.
High hopes
As you might imagine, Williamson has high hopes the grant will be approved. He and the authority’s board of directors have been working on the project since 2001. State and federal funding partners and local stakeholders have spent about $15 million to complete engineering, planning, environmental permitting, site acquisition and harbor construction. Phase 1 of the port construction will be completed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in December.
Williamson said in May 2009 the board learned that the U.S. Department of Transportation was going to have $1.5 billion available for intermodal projects in distressed areas.
“The minimum was $20 million. We did the work that needed to be done to get ready for it and applied for it,” he said. “An economic study had to be done. It’s very competitive.”
The study comes in the form of lengthy reports written by two officials — Dr. David Penn, associate professor and director, and Dr. Murat Arik, associate director — of the Business and Economic Research Center, Jones College of Business, Middle Tennessee State University at Murfreesboro.
The Port Authority commissioned the study.
Mission
The primary mission of the study was “to assess the contributions of the proposed investment ($35 million) in the port at Cates Landing to the economy of the three-county region (Lake, Dyer and Obion) and its surrounding areas.”
For Williamson, the report was an eye-opener.
“I realized, because of the kind of business I’m in, that we are in hard times,” Williamson said. “But I didn’t realize just how bad until we gathered it all together and put it on paper. People around here think we live in Eden. We don’t.”
Here are a few excerpts from the report:
• Population growth during the period 2000-08.
Dyer County gained .86 percent, or 14/100th less than 1 percent.
Lake County lost 8 percent of its population.
Obion and Crockett counties each lost 3 percent of their populations.
Weakley County lost 4 percent.
• Unemployment during period 2000-08.
Nationwide: 9.7 percent.
Dyer County: 16 percent.
Lake County: 11 percent. “The only reason it’s that low is, so many people have left looking for work somewhere else.”
Obion County: 12 percent.
Crockett County: 13 percent.
Gibson County: 15 percent.
Lauderdale County: 19 percent.
Weakley County: 14 percent.
Job prospects
“According to Dr. Arik’s study, about 400 construction jobs would immediately be created, and would last two to three years during the construction phase,” Williamson said. “After that, the port would bring in somewhere around 700 jobs and probably save about 2,000 existing jobs. If a large industry located here, it would create about 2,200 jobs.”
A lot of interest has been expressed in the new river port by industry the last 10 years. Williamson said he personally worked with officials of three steel mills who came in and looked at the site. “And there’s been a yeast plant and a cornstarch plant, all of them huge investments that need water transportation,” he said.
Critical project
“Dr. Arik believes that if this port project is built, it would cut the poverty rate of this area by about 50 percent. So it’s extremely important that we get this thing finished, just for long-term success of the community. Without it, we’ll be here but mostly hanging on (with most people living on government funds.)
“If we are successful, I would think the overflow would help southwestern Kentucky,” Williamson said. “What this study also shows is that the pie is shrinking. We can sit and fight over the shrinking shares or we can pull together and make the pie bigger. Dyer, Lake, Obion counties, as well as southwestern Kentucky and Missouri. They’ve all been supportive.
“If we can get this grant, it means we can proceed with building the port. It means 400 construction jobs immediately, good paying jobs, and it will mean a huge economic boost in a three-county area.”
Williamson said that, according to economists, “It takes a huge stimulus” to “turn around” economic deterioration of an area.
“This is a chance for us to stem the flow, the drain of our young and talented people who leave the area because they can’t find jobs here,” he said.
Positive sign
Williamson said he was gratified to be notified by the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) Friday that it acquired final approval for a $250,000 grant to fund engineering work on the dock. “There’s going to be a lot of road design and rail design, a lot of soil borings, those kinds of things,” he said. “We’ve done preliminary work, but we need to do more so that engineers will know how to design the structures.”
Published in The Messenger 10.13.09 |
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