Posted on September 19, 2018
It’s a win for the waterways. Congress is awarding money to four projects on the water, including the Port of Lake Providence.
Farmers are the backbone of the Delta, and the Port of Lake Providence is the largest inland port on the Mississippi River. Last week, U.S. Congress allocated $1.315 million for dredging.
While the money won’t fix all its problems; it will keep the port running another year.
“If we lost that port i don’t know what it would do to this community. It would ruin the farmers actually, because we wouldn’t have any place to move our grain,” said President of the 5th District Louisiana Levee Board Reynold Minsky.
Minsky has been fighting for funding for years to get a permanent fix for the levee.
“If they would dredge that port every year 1.3 million would be sufficient. After the 2011 flood we had to spend $22 million just to get it open we couldn’t even get in the port,” said Minsky.
He has been working closely with Congressman Ralph Abraham to secure money to fix the port.
And, now for the first time funds have been allocated to allow grains and other commodities to get to market.
“We had to make some calls to some very high officials and stress to them how important this port is not only to north Louisiana or Louisiana as a whole but the entire South,” said Abraham.
With a temporary fix in place, both agree they must continue pushing for a permanent one.
“To really divert that levee and move that water so the seal doesn’t keep building year after year you are looking for quite a bit of money,” Abraham said. “So it’s a work in progress, but when the dust settles I think we will win this.”
Minsky said he hopes the funds will be added to Trump’s budget, ” We going to fight for it every year and we hope to God they put it in the president’s budget.”
The other three projects include deepening the Red River, adding the Little River in the Ouachita River and Black Rivers navigation project and additional funds for the Army Corps of Engineer projects.
Source: myarklamiss.com
