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42 | Maritime Professional | 2Q 2014 Los Angeles. He estimates at least $4 to $5 million dollars is gone into the General Fund. “That’s money we’ll never get back. That horse has long since left the barn.” The Port of New Orleans is dredged to 47 feet and was au- thorized to dredge the river to 55 feet in 1986. “It’s the money more than anything else,” says Port President Gary LaGrange, adding the port has been under constant construction since 2004 and is in the third phase of its modernization plan. Getting funding for the billion-dollar port expansion proj- ects is another kettle of fi sh. While the government has made an effort to expedite the approval process for dredging and other port projects, “they aren’t handing out much in the way of monies to pay for them, according to Kruse. “Tiger grants aren’t going to do much here,” says Kruse, noting they run at most to $10 million to $15 million while the projects are more on the scales of billons. This is why he says, the state legislatures of Florida, South Carolina and Georgia went ahead and allocated money to update their ports. “They know the government isn’t going to pay for this – it can’t.” Other ports, like Baltimore and Norfolk, have turned to public-private partnerships to help fund their expansion and modernization plans. Still other ports use profi ts from port op- erations and or bonds to pay the bills. Time is also an issue. And with project approval processes taking anywhere from 5-20 years in some cases, it’s not an ex- aggeration to say that time and ships could pass by some ports stuck for years in planning mode and environmental mitiga- tion. Fortunately for these projects and the deteriorating inte- rior, it looks like this will be the year of water infrastructure. WRRDA After a seven-year wait, at press time, the Senate and House announced a bipartisan agreement on the country’s fi rst wa- ter resources bill since 2007. The Water Resources and Re- form Development Act (WRRDA) still needs to be approved by both chambers, and signed by President Obama, who had urged its passage in the State of The Union address, declar- ing that “in today’s global economy, fi rst-class jobs gravitate to fi rst-class infrastructure.” (Not to mention export market ownership.) “I’ve been a port employee for 33 years, that was the fi rst time I ever heard the word “port” used in a State of the Union address,” said LaGrange. LOGISTICS 34-49 Q2 MP2014.indd 42 5/19/2014 9:23:10 AM
