Local business and industry officials have been assured that by the end of the week the NOBRA Pilots Board of Examiners will lift daylight-only restrictions on Mississippi River ship movements, reinstating 24-hour access to the river.
The tentative agreement comes 10 months after the board imposed restrictions blocking ship movements on the river outside of daylight hours. Officials with the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil & Gas Association, the Port of Greater Baton Rouge, ExxonMobil Baton Rouge and other companies with operations along the river have been calling for an immediate end to the restrictions, which they say have hurt business in the Capital Region.
The Baton Rouge section of the NOBRA jurisdiction is the only river segment in Louisiana currently observing such a restriction.
BRAC’s board of directors was scheduled to hold a news conference today to ask lawmakers to lift the ban, which they argue dramatically increases costs and delays daily operations for thousands of workers. But that event was canceled this afternoon, with BRAC confirming it would instead work with NOBRA to finalize a resolution in the coming days.
NOBRA initiated the restrictions last spring because of safety concerns amid rising water levels, but the move has negatively impacted commerce in the region.
“For the roughly 1,000 large vessels that have been affected over the past year, what used to take 24 hours to navigate now takes two to three days,” says Adam Knapp, BRAC president and CEO. “If this was a safety concern, why haven’t the current river levels caused the Crescent River or Bar Pilots to enact similar work restrictions?”
NOBRA Pilots Board of Examiners Chair Robert Heitmeier says the reason the board has kept the restrictions in place is because the current is moving faster than before and is most treacherous in the stretch between Bayou Lafouche and Baton Rouge, as many pilots experience fatigue on the route.
Still, he says the board has “full intentions to get things back to normal,” pointing to a recent meeting with local companies he says was “productive.” An equally pressing concern, though, is the board’s lack of a Standard of Care that clearly outlines its safety policy.
“Hopefully, that will happen soon,” Heitmeier says, noting efforts are underway.
In its existing form, the restriction is making companies like Valero and ExxonMobil Baton Rouge unable to perform their transportation and manufacturing processes in a timely and predictable manner.
“We are a 24-hour-a-day business that is constrained to being only able to move products in short windows every day,” says Stephanie Cargile, ExxonMobil spokeswoman. “We cannot compete in a global market when the major artery of commerce in Louisiana is only open in daylight.”
Greg Johnson, master director of business development at the Port of Greater Baton Rouge, says he’s heard that some large vessels have opted to avoid passing through Baton Rouge altogether. And the perception that Louisiana’s industrial hub can be closed for hours at a time “damages efforts to bring certainty and stability to Louisiana’s business climate,” says Tyler Gray, president of LMOGA, in a letter sent Monday to NOBRA requesting to lift the restrictions.
Safety is often cited as the top reason behind the daylight-only restrictions. However, local business leaders have previously argued NOBRA has imposed restrictions that are arbitrary and inconsistent.
In May 2011, the board issued an advisory with daylight-only restrictions until the water levels in Baton Rouge fell to 40 feet or below at the same time the water levels at the Carrollton Gage in New Orleans fell to 16 feet or below. Once these levels were reached, the restrictions were automatically lifted.
The board once again implemented daytime restrictions in April 2019, when river levels reached 41.27 feet in Baton Rouge and 16.35 at the Carrollton Gage, but did not specify when the restrictions would be lifted.
Then, last month, the board further restricted vessel transit along 150 miles of the river, again without specifying what the river levels needed to reach for the restrictions to be lifted, effectively implementing them indefinitely. River levels at both gages were then and still are below the 2011 and 2019 restrictions, projected to continue dropping in the coming days.
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