Business is good for the Port of New Orleans. Cargo shipping is up about 20 percent this year from last. Because the Port is an independent public entity, not run by the city or state, it can take that extra money and invest it right back into operations. There are currently more than $40 million worth of improvements underway as a result.
But with the expansion has come added responsibility. The port is trying to cut its environmental footprint.
On the other side of the tall concrete wall on Tchoupitoulas Street lays a hidden world – the port of New Orleans’ Napoleon Avenue Container Terminal. It’s where the giant boats heading up and down the Mississippi River dock to load and unload colorful shipping containers full of everything from bananas to computers.
Port director of external affairs, Matt Gresham, says all of the growth means things have changed over the years.
“You used to be able to kind of wander up from the neighborhood and go fishing on the docks if you’d like back then,” says Gresham of the port years ago. “Now it’s very secure, everyone has to be credentialed and if you’re not you have to be escorted by a credentialed person, so you don’t have the access that you once had.”
Gresham’s truck is the only small vehicle in line as we head through the secure gates. All the rest are semis. He says about 2,000 of them pass through every day, carrying all kinds of consumer goods. Anything that can fit in a shipping container might be here. But it’s the stacks and stacks of Chiquita shipping containers that stand out.
“That’s a lot of bananas,” says Gresham, who explains that the majority of the bananas consumed in America pass through the port.
Chiquita just came back to New Orleans from Gulfport after 40 years.
“There’s actually one ship that comes in that’s chartered by Chiquita through MSC – the Mediterranean Shipping Company service,” says Gresham. “This is the first year since Chiquita has been back… bringing about 60,000-80,000 containers of bananas per year.”
Port Chief Operating Officer, Brandy Christian, says the bananas are just a part of the port’s overall growth.
“A lot of the growth has been market,” says Christian. “Coming out of the recession there is more of a flow of goods. I think that the Port of New Orleans has been able to capture a lot of that because of the facilities that we have and just the geography.”
Located at the mouth of the Mississippi River, the port is at an advantage for serving gulf cruises and moving cargo from all over the world.
The increase in goods has allowed the port to build a new intermodal terminal connecting rail to the shipyard, a refrigerated container racking system and new cranes to load ships.
But all of the additional traffic -- ships and trucks coming in and out -- means more emissions. In a place like New Orleans, where the air quality is already low, it’s up to the port to keep their emissions down. That’s a challenge.
So now the port has an environmental services manager, Amelia Pellegrin. Hired two years ago for the new position, she says new LED lighting saves energy -- green “points” to offset emissions. Newly upgraded port cars are greener, too.
“We looked at our own fleet -- we purchased some electric vehicles, we’re going to be moving towards more hybrid electric vehicles and then we’ve also gone after federal funding,” says Pellegrin. “There’s a number of pots of federal funding that will fund emissions reductions projects -- from EPA, from DOT, from the Department of Energy.”
The port has been especially concerned about how new stricter EPA air quality rules would impact business. The city of New Orleans will have to bring down its overall emissions from cars, factories and businesses.
Christian says that can be a challenge for attracting new business. “I think we operate in a rather friendly environment and New Orleans will be in in-attainment. So I think from a port stance -- knowing that we want to grow and that with growth does come more environmental impacts, that we have to be proactive and bring programs forward that reduce any impacts.”
She says most big shipping companies want to use ports that have certain green certifications, like Green Marine, which the port just joined this spring. It recommends things like decreasing dust, preventing garbage from being dumped in the water, preventing cargo like minerals, grain, salt and sugar from spilling into the local environment, and cutting back fossil fuel consumption.
Pellegrin has started regular meetings with port tenants and operators about the new environmental regulations, programs and standards.
“On the ground what it means is that there’s a lot more dialogue happening,” says Pellegrin. “So for little things like a minor spill or a minor environmental incidents our tenants now call me and say ‘Okay, we had this, we’re not sure who we’re supposed to report to. We don’t know who exactly to contact.’”
With the increase in traffic, that task is clearly challenging. Gresham is out at the port nearly every day and says the increase in traffic has been noticeable. “Business is booming right now. Our issue is to find money to invest to expand the terminal so we can accommodate what we believe the growth that we’ll see in the next two to three years.”
That expansion will largely accommodate an increase in one particular business -- an influx of chemical resins shipped from new companies along the Mississippi River.
Support for WWNO's Coastal Desk comes from the Greater New Orleans Foundation, the Coypu Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation.
