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Inland port expansion could benefit Midwest agricultural shippers

By TIM ALEXANDER
Illinois Correspondent

PEORIA, Ill. — As a major inland port on the Mississippi River prepares to cut the ribbon on a $50 million investment in Illinois waterways infrastructure, more shippers are recognizing the utility of intermodal Midwest ports.
In addition to this expansion to the America’s Central Port at Quincy, major expansions are under way at inland ports in Duluth, Ind., and the Port of Milwaukee. Transportation analysts point to trucker shortages, the West Coast port labor dispute earlier in 2015 and prolonged rail delivery delays as the drivers for growing interest in Midwest port expansion.
Rail delays to agricultural commodity shipments came to a head during the “polar vortex” winter of 2013, said Scott Sigman, transportation infrastructure head for the Illinois Soybean Assoc. (ISA), leading to increased scrutiny of rail shipments of ag products.
“It shed light on how constrained the rail network was, and how near to capacity. We’ve had an opportunity to reexamine the need for water infrastructure and the rivers,” Sigman explained. “The port facilities that have been developed in the past have not attracted the kind of significant investment that railroads have placed on their infrastructure.
“What has transpired in the last 30 months or so is an increase in attention by port authorities, by state governments, by communities in river and Great Lakes facilities, in order to accommodate the increase in volumes from record yields of corn and soybeans.”
Even with grain storage facilities and farmers adding grain store capacity to their operations, the need to move continuous record and near-record harvests to domestic and export markets means inland port expansion is coming to the forefront, Sigman added. Other transportation infrastructure analysts agree with his assessment.
“Located outside crowded port areas, where land is scarce or not available at all, inland ports’ advantages are well documented because of their positive impact on regional industrial development, and because they create space for more buildings in proximity to intermodal sites, thus relieving pressure in port areas and on roadways,” said Tim Feemster, managing principal, Foremost Quality Logistics (Intermodal Sites).
“From fluctuating fuel costs to fewer drivers to port congestion, logistics providers are facing a host of challenges. With the current transport climate, the ascendance of inland ports is well-time and probably part of the answer to both the fuel and congestion issue.”
Inland port development is also under way at Savanna and Joliet, Ill., the Dubuque, Iowa, area and the Quad Cities Illinois/Iowa area of the Mississippi River, Sigman said, along with Illinois River locales such as Beardstown and the Port of Will County.
“There is potential for agriculture to take advantage of the river network all the way up the Illinois River,” he added.
The ISA is particularly interested in promoting container-on-barge (COB) transportation of ag commodities on the inland water system. “We’re pretty excited about the potential for developing a COB service. The soybean growers would love to see containers moved by barge down to New Orleans or up to Chicago,” Sigman said.
The inland waterways transportation system could be used to ship containers filled with agricultural goods, but the transition could face several hurdles, according to Grafton, Ill., Mayor Tom Thompson, a member of the board of commissioners at America’s Central Port, where a COB trial run was conducted in April.
At the trial’s conclusion barge, terminal and port officials joined the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, developers and mayors for a press conference to discuss, acknowledge and raise awareness of the importance and economic opportunity of COB shipping.
“This is not an easy undertaking,” Thompson said of COB on the river in the Paducah-St. Louis region. “This effort requires key partnerships between the public and private sectors, and the mayors along the Mississippi River have forged those partnerships.”
Inland port development should not adversely impact the trucking or rail industries, according to Sigman, whose ISA was a participant in the study of COB movements last April.
“It’s a system and it all works together,” he said. “Improvements in waterways is part of the whole logistics and transportation system. The river is seldom the last mile.”
The ribbon-cutting for the $50 million expansion to America’s Central Port should occur in late September or early October, he said.
8/26/2015