While drought conditions and low Mississippi River levels in states farther north are negatively impacting barge operators as far south as Louisiana, Port of Greater Baton Rouge Executive Director Jay Hardman says the local effects have been minimal thus far.
“With the exception of a few of our tenants located along the barge canal, we have been pretty well isolated from it,” Hardman says. “With our grain elevator closed for renovations, we’ve really dodged a bullet.”
The grain elevator has been closed since January 2012 as part of an approximately $130 million renovation being undertaken by Louis Dreyfus Commodities. Hardman says he is told the project is moving along as planned and is on target to reopen later this year.
“They’re trying very hard to capture the wheat harvest here in May, but whether they can do that or not is still unknown,” he says.
If Louis Dreyfus doesn’t complete the renovations in time for the wheat harvest, Hardman says they’ll then be shooting to open the elevator in time for the corn or soybean harvest, which comes later in the summer.
One of the lowest spots along the river is between St. Louis and Cairo, Ill., where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is taking action to keep the river from closing to barge traffic altogether.
“As you go further north it’s been much more dramatic,” Hardman says. “I think it would have been a much different story here if the grain elevator project had been completed a year ago.”
