Posted on March 27, 2017
By Greg Hilburn, thenews star
Wyly Gilfoil remembers when 25 million bushels of Louisiana corn and soybeans were dry docked at the state’s largest inland port in Lake Providence in 2012 before the Army Corps of Engineers was pressured by Congress to dredge the port channel and the Mighty Mississippi during a low-water drought.
The Lake Providence Port director said he fears a similar predicament if the corps’ funding is cut by 16.3 percent as proposed by President Donald Trump’s budget blueprint last week.
“It shut us down in 2012,” Gilfoil said of the port, which moves more than 1 million tons on the Mississippi River each year. “Funding for dredging is always an issue, so a bigger cut to the corps could dramatically affect our ability to move the state’s biggest grain crop.”
Cuts to the corps, as well as diminished funding for Community Development Block Grants and the elimination of the Delta Regional Authority, are among the concerns Gov. John Bel Edwards reiterated in a letter to Trump’s budget chief Mick Mulvaney this week.
Edwards was among the governors on a conference call with Mulvaney last week briefing them on the proposed budget and possible impacts.
The governor wrote that Louisiana depends on the corps both for operational maintenance on its navigable rivers as well as new flood control projects like the Comite River Diversion project.
“The importance of this project was evident during the recent August floods,” Edwards wrote. “It’s a priority of my administration, as well as members of the Louisiana congressional delegation, to secure the necessary funds from the corps to complete this project.”
Edwards said he understands the $1.6 billion the state has secured in Community Development Block Grants for federal flood recovery is separate from traditional CDBG funding, but “non-disaster CDBG funds are the backbone of cities and counties, small medium and large.”
The governor noted that the Delta Regional Authority, which would be scrapped under the blueprint, has invested more than $28 million in Louisiana infrastructure projects since 2002.
Last year the DRA provided $3.3 million to Louisiana projects, including a grant that is helping to replace St. Joseph’s drinking water system that has been poisoned with lead.
“I would urge the administration to carefully consider how each of these proposed cuts in the budget blueprint will impact real citizens in potentially life-saving ways,” Edwards wrote.
Louisiana’s congressional delegation widely supports the proposal, except for lone Democrat Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-New Orleans, who called the Trump blueprint an insult to the state.
Others praised the effort to shrink government with the option of restoring cuts that might harm the state.
“President Trump’s budget blueprint paves the way for truly slashing the size of the bloated federal government and finally invests in our military and veterans,” said Rep. Ralph Abraham, R-Alto. “We’ll need to negotiate on some areas that are important to economic development in Louisiana, but I believe the proposal is a good first step in what will be a developing negotiation process.”
Source: thenews star
