The Greater Baton Rouge Port Commission’s president is apologizing to the people of Baton Rouge for leasing 60 acres of riverfront property near a subdivision and a BREC park to a Texas company that planned to build a barge cleaning facility on the site.
The deal spawned a public outcry that culminated Wednesday, when the Metro Council voted to rezone the property, effectively killing the project before it could get off the ground.
“If we had known this would cause so much uproar we never would have started this process,” says Commission Board President Clint Seneca. “As a board we are going to back off and try to get our good name back.”
Seneca says he’s not sure how, exactly, to do that other than to apologize for misjudging the situation.
“I think the first step is to apologize to the citizens of East Baton Rouge Parish,” he says. “If they don’t want it there we’re not going to put it there. As a port we want to be good neighbors. We’re not going to force anything down anybody’s throat.”
The port first entered into lease talks with Tubal Cain Marine Services, a Port Arthur, Texas, company, in late 2013. The public didn’t become aware of the proposed project until June, when a hearing was scheduled with the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality. Area residents and community leaders reacted with concern that bordered on outrage, leading to the Metro Council’s decision to rezone the site from heavy industrial to commercial to halt the proposal.
DEQ has yet to determine whether it will issue a permit for the project, though the rezoning has rendered the question moot. A DEQ spokesman issued a statement today saying, “Although the change in zoning does not automatically terminate the permit application, please be assured that DEQ will consider public comments and recent action by local government in its final permit decision. Once the comment period closes, DEQ will review the public’s comments and a response to all timely public comments will accompany the permit decision.”
Tubal Cain executives have declined to comment.
—Stephanie Riegel
