WASHINGTON, D.C. — Capacity to ship grain and other products on major Indiana waterways could grow substantially.

 

The U.S Department of Transportation is recommending a close to $10 million grant to help with an expansion of the Port of Indiana at Burns Harbor. The grant would cover half of the proposed $19.7 million in new infrastructure that would boost cargo handling capacity and the process of transferring product between ships, barges, railcars and trucks.

Chris Hurt, a professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University, wasn’t sure exactly what impact that might have on farmers, but said it definitely creates more economic possibilities.

Grain and soybeans, along with raw materials used in making steel, are among the major products handled at the port at the southern tip of Lake Michigan, along with dry and liquid fertilizers, lumber, chemicals, asphalt and paper.

Indiana has two other ports along the Ohio River, at Jeffersonville and Mt. Vernon, and the investment eyed for Burns Harbor is viewed as enhancing what’s already regarded as one of the premier ports on all of the Great Lakes.

The grant still requires Congressional approval. “These investments in northwest Indiana will allow the Port of Indiana to increase its multimodal freight-handling capabilities to help meet anticipated future demand,” said Mich Cooper, CEO at the Ports of Indiana, the government body that runs and maintains all three ports.

A fourth Indiana port on the drawing board near Lawrenceburg along the Ohio River is awaiting final approval. Cooper said expansion at Burns Harbor would meet increased demand following a three-year period where shipment volumes there were the most ever at the port since its creation nearly 50 years ago. All three of the ports combined also report the highest quarterly shipment total in more than a half-century during the fourth quarter of 2016, handling 3.9 million tons of cargo during that period.

That exceeded the previous quarterly record from 2015 by 300,000 tons, according to the Ports of Indiana. 

 

All of Indiana’s ports also reported 11.3 million tons shipped for 2016, the third consecutive time annual shipments at all three locations topped 10 million tons.

The proposed expansion at the Burns Harbor site includes a new terminal more than two acres in size and extending the current rail network by more than four miles, along with a new six-acre truck marshalling yard and a second yard storing up to 165 railcars. An additional 1,200 feet of dock space would also be created.

For agriculture, Hurt said a fourth Indiana port could have more of a positive impact from access to more markets from the southeastern part of the state than an expansion of the Lake Michigan port.

He said much of the grain at the site in Burns Harbor, historically, has gone to Europe but that continent produces more of its food nowadays so demand might not to be there to support greater shipments out of northwestern Indiana, unless more customers elsewhere are secured. “(European countries) don’t import large amounts anymore, so I’m not sure if the grain side of things would need expansion there,” Hurt explained.

Generally, though, he said agriculture views favorably any expansion of infrastructure related to moving goods because even if production isn’t always there to support it, the ability to transport greater volumes is there when needed.

“The bottom line is, when you produce more than you consume in a given geographic area, the excess has no value to it unless you can move it to somebody in a more distant location,” said Hurt. According to port officials, all of the existing ports in Indiana support 60,000 jobs and $7.8 billion in annual economic activity.