Port of South Louisiana official urges local collaboration as parish handles large share of grain exports

Julia Fisher Cormier, representing the Port of South Louisiana, told the Saint Charles Parish Council on July 27 that the port’s multimodal network moves enormous volumes of cargo and that St. Charles Parish plays a major role in that throughput. "We're the largest port in Louisiana and the 2nd largest in the country," Cormier said, noting the port handles 46,000,000 short tons of grain each year and that roughly 18,000,000 of those tons transit St. Charles Parish.

Cormier outlined the Port’s three priorities — fueling the economy, feeding the world and fortifying infrastructure — and listed local transportation projects the port supports, including the I-310/US-90 interchange and an I-10 exit into Reserve. She said the port has identified road projects in each of the tri-parish jurisdictional areas and offered potential letters of support or small matching funds to advance those improvements. "So anything we can do, whether it be a letter of support, maybe it's a small match in finances somehow," she said.

The presentation emphasized economic connectivity: Cormier said the Port of South Louisiana connects to 31 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces, and that the port’s jurisdiction attracted roughly $10,000,000,000 in private investment over the past two years — a figure she said did not include projects located inside Saint Charles Parish. She invited continued collaboration with the parish president and council on infrastructure and workforce priorities.

Council members did not take a vote on the presentation but thanked Cormier for the update; the Port representative opened the floor to questions and said she looked forward to working with the parish on truck-traffic and access improvements.