Page 44: of Marine News Magazine (November 2015)

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FINANCING INFRASTRUCTURE

Photo: America’s Central Port

A New Toolkit for

Planning Port Investment

The U.S. Maritime Administration’s Port Planning and Investment Toolkit includes a Funding

Strategy Module that can expedite and foster better coordination different sources of funding, enhance collaboration and provide tangible results – at all levels.

By James A. Kearns recently attended the dedication ceremony for the new grants from the U.S. Department of Transportation, for

South Harbor of America’s Central Port, located just which U.S. Maritime Administrator Paul “Chip” Jae-

I north of downtown St. Louis in southwestern Madison nichen was warmly and justly applauded. The representa-

County, Illinois. The $50 million project created a new tives from the State of Illinois and Madison County de- terminal to handle cargo carried by rail, truck, and barge, scribed the ? nancial support that they had also provided. plus a new general cargo barge dock. It entailed the con- The Port’s Board of Commissioners had approved private struction of 9,600 feet of rail track, the excavation of over debt ? nancing as well, to be repaid from the port’s revenues one million cubic yards of dirt, and the placement of over and not from taxes. It was an impressive display of collabo- 8,000 cubic yards of concrete. ration and coordination among funding sources at differ-

The newly excavated harbor carved out of the river ent levels, of different kinds, and in different amounts, to bank, the freshly laid rail track with two brightly painted bring the South Harbor project to a successful completion.

locomotives, and the tractor trailers loading and unloading This was done while there continues to be much ink, cargoes of various kinds, all brought home to me yet again both physical and electronic, devoted to the sorry state how our river ports convert what would otherwise be three of the U.S. inland waterways infrastructure, especially its separate channels of commerce into a single, integrated locks and dams, and of the need for funding (read: Con- network of nationwide freight transportation. The whole gress) to address this dire and deteriorating state of af- is truly greater than the sum of its parts. fairs. The prospects for funding approaches other than the

But, as I listened to the speeches that were made at the well-trodden path to the federal trough have been bright- dedication ceremony by those who had contributed to the ened by recent developments, such as provisions in the success of the project, something impressed me even more Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2014 than the new harbor facility itself: how the Port got the (WRRDA) for a pilot program of public-private partner- money. To be sure, there were signi? cant TIGER (Trans- ships and a study of the potential bene? ts of federally tax- portation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) exempt bonds.

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