Like most people in the port city of Greenville, Tommy Hart is worried about high water.
As the director of the Port of Greenville, Hart knows the facility he manages is affected every day by the amount of water in the river.
When the river is low, it takes more effort and time to load and unload barges. That effort and time costs money.
When the river is high, specifically above 55 feet, the port facilities go underwater and all the work stops.
Before the most recent history, flooding wasn’t a regular occurrence at the port. It happened about once every 12 years or so, according to Hart.
Now those floods seem to be coming every year and the port spent three weeks out of commission just last year.
At a meeting just last week, Hart said representatives from the Army Corps of Engineers is predicting another round of high water for this year.
While the water level may not be high enough to put the port out of commission, Hart said the first phase of steps to ensure the port will always be able to operate began with a $400,000 grant from the Mississippi Department of Transportation last year and will be realized when actual engineering work begins next week on a 20-acre facility just up the road from the current port facility.
There’s a warehouse there now and the $400,000 will be used to rehab the exterior and create a way to secure cargo inside the building. It’s currently being used by a company that deals in damaged shipping cargo.
While rehabbing the facility won’t provide a new port facility, it’s the first step in creating a new terminal in the port.
The building sits at the highest elevation in the port area, and, as Hart said, “If this goes underwater, the rest of the world would be under water.”
The acreage has 1,000 feet of river frontage, but would require construction and implementation of a conveyor system to actually move product off the river.
The new conveyor would be what Hart said is phase two, but that work hasn’t begun yet and won’t for a while. The total project is expected to take six months.
Until those two projects are complete, Hart, like always, will keep an eye on the river forecasts.
“It’s a level of concern,” Hart said. “It’s a lot of disruption.”
The high water in the river produces a level of uncertainty for customers who use the port.
Most shipping is planned about 90 days to six months out and not knowing if the port is available at that time makes planning difficult, Hart said.
“It produces a level of uncertainty and that is difficult to deal with,” Hart said. “It’s a real challenge to keep things on schedule.
“The river is extremely busy. There’s not a minute that goes by that a boat doesn’t pass the end of Lake Ferguson,” he said.
For now, once work is complete, the new facility will be used as a warehouse, but its future is as a flood-free terminal.
That terminal would be a backup to the current facility as it does require a longer transport of product when the river is low.
Hart said the work the Corps has done in the past has been great, but something has got to change with the current water situation in the river or the flooding will only continue.
In the last 12 years Hart has been at the port, the facility has benefited from the work to procure $23.5 million in grants for construction and work at the port.
“Everything here is basically new,” Hart said adding they will continue the search for funding for more projects.
