JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – The Interim Committee on Development and Improvement of Missouri Ports met Wednesday for their first hearing. The committee heard testimony from representatives from the Missouri Department of Transportation, the Missouri Port Authority Association and the agricultural industry.
Committee chair Rep. Becky Ruth found that the hearing was a ringing endorsement of the value of Missouri’s ports.
“It was a validation that this is a huge economic development tool for our state,” Ruth said after the hearing. “I think that was very well validated by all of the people that spoke today from agriculture to the ports themselves.”
“When the ports testify and we heard about the industry they’ve been able to bring in, the jobs they’ve been able to provide, and the potential jobs that are there just simply from the construction end of things when they come in to build that industry and that place, I think that’s a big takeaway,” Ruth said.
Cheryl Ball, the freight and waterways administrator for MODOT, explained why investment in ports was a positive for Missouri businesses and the state economy.
“Ports, in general, are one of the best kept secrets in this state,” she said. “Unfortunately, one of the best kept secrets. They’re environmentally efficient. Unless you’re located right next door to them, you probably don’t know they exist, unless your business is using them.”
The “unfortunate” part for Ball comes from the idea that legislators, the governor’s office, nor the general populace thinks much about the impact that ports have on their livelihoods and the success of the state. Missouri’s ports provide 441 direct jobs and positive indirect economic impact to towns and cities an average of 75 miles away from the port. Ball also stated that for every dollar put into ports, state officials could expect to see anywhere from seven to 10 dollars in private investment.
With emerging opportunities in the Gulf of Mexico, including the expansion of the Panama Canal and the United States’ continued normalization with Cuba, agricultural industries in Missouri would likely see the most impact. Samantha Davis of the Missouri Corn Growers Association and Dan Engeman of the Missouri Soybean Association both testified that their respective crops brought in millions of dollars for the state economy. Since 62 percent of soybeans and 46 percent of corn grown in Missouri is exported abroad, including to Asian nations via the Panama Canal, Davis and Engeman said investment into ports was essential, especially since Brazil’s developing economy could mean increased competition in those same markets in the future.
“America’s safe and reliable inland transportation system really is the envy of the world and others are trying to be like us,” Davis said. “We have to keep making investments into ours if we’re going to maintain that status.”
Ball also noted that increased shipping via the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers could alleviate some of the stress put on Missouri’s “crumbling” roads and bridges. MODOT has expressed its difficulties with a lack of funding for road construction and repair, and Ball noted that putting more barges on Missouri’s main waterways would take more tractor-trailer trucks, especially overweight trucks, off the roads, thus keeping Missouri roads and bridges more structurally sound.
Representatives from the Kansas City Port Authority and the New Madrid County Port Authority also discussed the economic impact the increase in industry brought to their regions and how more funding was key to make necessary improvements in a timely manner.
However, MODOT faces funding problems for its ports as well as its roads. The department only received $3 million in improvement grants, and “the support at the state level has been erratic and typically non-existent,” according to a report by the MPAA. From FY 2004 to 2014, they received $11.7 million in funding, but in inconsistent amounts. In those 11 years, MODOT only received funding in four of them.
“Those funds traditionally expire at the end of the fiscal year, June 30, so that definitely causes some challenge for each of our port directors under our current processes,” Ball said. She later added, “Traditionally those funds have just been sent back to the general revenue.”
Ruth added that another challenge was that various stakeholders from across the state were currently acting as individual entities and that created a group with a single focus was one of the key goals of the hearing.
“There are a lot of groups that are meeting all over the state that have a say-so in our ports, such as the Army Corps of Engineers,” Ruth said. “So I think that’s one of our challenges… is to get some of those folks on board and see what we’re trying to do and bring them into the loop so we can have this one strong focus together.”
Near the end of the hearing, Rep. Bob Burns, D-St. Louis, advocated an immediate, wholesale investment into better waterway infrastructure, and Ruth said that approach would be looked at by the committee.
The committee will hold an action meeting sometime in September.
