Port: Tonnage reporting critical to get federal funds

A decline in the amount of commercial vessels traveling through the Port of Morgan City’s waterways may affect whether port officials are able to keep the waterways open and adequately dredged.

So it’s important for companies to accurately report the amount of tonnage they transport through the port so officials can get necessary federal funding to dredge the Atchafalaya River and other waterways, said Port Economic Development Manager Cindy Cutrera. Many companies, especially oil and gas businesses, don’t have a person designated to report tonnage, she said.

“We’re a viable port down here,” Port Executive Director Raymond “Mac” Wade said. “This river is very key to the lifeblood of this area. And we’ve got to have the funding.”

Ports are ranked near the end of each year based on the amount of tonnage that crosses docks within the port’s district and tonnage that’s transported through the district, Cutrera said. That ranking affects how much federal funding is allocated to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to dredge the area’s waterways.

The port’s tonnage, and consequently its national ranking, has continually declined over the past five years. The following list shows the yearly ranking and tonnage: 2009, No. 98, 2.1 million tons; 2010, No. 108, 1.99 million tons; 2011, No. 119, 1.56 million tons; 2012, No. 116, 1.77 million tons; 2013, No. 122, 1.7 million tons; and 2014, No. 138, 1.26 million tons.

Cutrera attributed the 500,000-ton drop from 2013 to 2014 to the Corps not giving credit to certain facilities’ tonnage that was reported. She expects the 2015 and 2016 rankings will see another decrease due to the economy and worsened river conditions.

Corps officials normally take a five-year average of the port’s tonnage when calculating the amount of funding ports should receive, Cutrera said.

Traffic on the Intracoastal Waterway has also dropped from over 5,000 vessel transits per month to around 4,000 transits a month within the past year, Wade said.

“The busier you are, the more they need to make sure they’ve got the waterways adequately working,” Wade said.

Lack of funding could affect port leaders’ efforts to keep the Atchafalaya River Bar Channel dredged to its congressionally authorized 20-foot depth year round, Wade said. The port began a dredging demonstration about two weeks ago to determine a way to keep the channel adequately dredged all year. Fluff, or fluid mud, builds up in the channel making navigation difficult or impossible for some vessels.

Getting the Bar Channel dredged to its authorized depth will allow import-export ships to come back to the port. Import-export ships made 20 trips to the port from August 2014 to September 2015 but haven’t visited since then due to the lack of water depth.

Routine dredging in the area of Berwick Bay and Intracoastal Waterway could also be affected by lack of funds, Wade said.

Cutrera told Corps’ officials that less traffic over the past few months is due in part due to lack of water depth in the Bar Channel and at a spot further upriver that filled in with sand. The sand plug was dredged earlier this month and is no longer an impediment to vessel traffic.

Port officials need to get all the data possible to ensure the port gets its necessary funding for dredging, Wade said.

The Corps of Engineers’ budget is steadily being cut by federal officials “so everybody’s fighting harder for a smaller piece of the pie,” he said.