La Place, LA - Last week, Port of South Louisiana Executive Director Paul Aucoin travelled to Washington, D.C., for a day-long series of meetings with key transportation influencers and stakeholders to discuss the port’s priorities. There, Mr. Aucoin briefed key journalists, think-tank scholars and a member of President-Elect Donald Trump’s Transition Team about issues impacting the port, including securing federal assistance to dredge the mouth of the Mississippi River.
"Ensuring the mouth of the Mississippi River is always dredged to 50 feet is critical for both Louisiana, and the entire nation," said Aucoin. "I stressed at every meeting, that ensuring the river is open for business will stimulate impressive economic growth and generate thousands of good paying jobs for working Americans. As a country, the Mississippi River is one of our most valuable resources and we must take steps to ensure its continued reliability."
The visit to Washington was a follow-up to an op-ed published in Real Clear Policy, by Aucoin, which described dredging the mouth of the Mississippi River as the "The Most Important Infrastructure Project In America." In the piece, he warns that if the mouth of the river continues to experience vessel depth restrictions, it jeopardizes the grain export business which is critical to many states across the nation that use the port to send their harvests across the globe to feed the world.
Aucoin’s trip to Washington is part of a broader effort by the Big River Coalition, led by Executive Director Sean Duffy, to secure increased federal allocations to ensure the Mississippi River Ship Channel is maintained (dredged) to federally authorized dimensions. The Big River Coalition is also focused on deepening the nation’s most critical Ship Channel to 50 feet to promote increased trade through the new locks on the Panama Canal. The Big River Coalition members include ports and maritime businesses that rely on the Mississippi River and its tributaries to transport goods.
Paul Aucoin held meetings with: