Non-Environmental Cost-Benefit News

The Port of Iberia has been meeting weekly with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Washington, D.C., to complete the economic feasibility portion of the deepening project.

Port director Roy Pontiff said the study is still on course to be completed by April or May. The study was set back almost a year because questions remained about the economic activity generated by the deepening project.

Representatives of the Corps' Mississippi River Valley Division, Sen. Mary Landrieu's office and the company G.E.C. will be present at the meeting, Pontiff said.

G.E.C. is a third party consulting firm independently verifying the economic data, he said. The study's information has been collected and compiled but has to be verified before it can be used in the study, Pontiff said.

"Things are moving along with the schedule as I understand it," Pontiff said.

The deepening plan feasibility study must be submitted to the U.S. Congress before authorization of the project can be given and funding approved. Authorization is needed from Congress before any work can begin on the project's planning and design. Before authorization, it takes a recommendation from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The port worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and others to assemble three parts of the feasibility study. The environmental portion has been submitted and approved, the engineering portion has also been submitted and approved, but the economic impact portion is still under discussion.

To justify a project, a cost benefit analysis study must show that for each dollar

spent another dollar is created, Pontiff said. The initial information the Corps compiled for the port showed it would barely qualify. The port wanted a firmer and more accurate study.

The Army Corps' economic standards apply only to shipping ports, he added. They do not cover fabrication ports. The economic dollars created from fabrication work are not reflected in shipping traffic. The Corps is considering new terminology that would apply to the Port of Iberia, and the ruling could impact other fabrication ports around the United States.

Once the Corps feels confident in the economic strength of the deepening project, the plan can be submitted to Congress. That can't happen unless the Water Resources Development Act is passed.

The wording that would authorize the deepening project, contingent on the feasibility study's completion, should come before Congress either at the end of the year, during the current legislative session or at the beginning of the next.

Once that happens, the project will be on its way to becoming a reality.

Pontiff said that, even before the dredging of the channel can begin, three other projects must be completed. The port must be reconfigured to handle vessels and a channel depth of 20 feet. The locks at the mouth of Fresh Water Bayou must be modified, and pipelines and other utilities that run under the present channel must be lowered. Because most of them are local projects, they wouldn't need federal funding and could start early.

The project will deepen the port channel from New Iberia through Vermilion Parish to the Gulf of Mexico from 12 feet to 20. It would enhance the port's capabilities and allow for larger projects there. The project is vital because many of the deep-water oil-platform fabrication jobs are too large for the channel to handle. Much of the work now requires a channel with an 18- to 20-foot depth. The largest package that can move through the channel presently is 6,000 tons.

Pontiff said a University of Louisiana at Lafayette and Louisiana State University study predicts 3,900 jobs would be created by the project. More than $300 million would flow through the state. That's about a 25-to-one return on the state's investment from their figures.

The federal government would fund 80 percent of the $194 million project.

By Henri Lejeune

The Daily Iberian (Louisiana)