What should be done next?

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I want to suggest a few changes to this section

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• From the 4/19 version of the Rosedale Report

1)    There is an urgent need to inform the comparative transportation and business economics of the primary modal conversion opportunity of moving freight from Rosedale to Baton Rouge and New Orleans by barge, truck, and rail in low and high water conditions. These questions can be answered for each Port tenant and user:

a.    How much are they shipping by barge south on the Mississippi?

b.    What is the seasonal nature of these shipments on a monthly basis?

c.    What are the temporal (timing) concerns relative to these shipments?

d.    What are their ability and costs to store products during low water delays?

e.    What are the trucking costs and availability from Rosedale to Baton Rouge and New Orleans during the year's low water/high demand times?

f.      What are the rail rates for this movement?

g.    How would railcars be acquired, and at what cost for these partial-year movements?

2)    The destination for commodities sourced in Mississippi has tended naturally to be overseas due to its prime position at the base of the Mississippi River watershed, the fourth largest in the world. Along with Louisiana, Mississippi has a competitive advantage compared to other Mississippi watershed states as the closest to ocean-going vessel loading. As confirmed by Tommy Hart, the opportunities for using the Mississippi River to distribute more Mississippi goods upstream to the heartland of America have not been adequately explored. This can be addressed beyond our initial outreach, wherein we identified two existing power plants north of the Port of Rosedale that expressed significant interest in sourcing wood pellets as replacement fuel for their boilers.

3)    Even focusing on the first tier of GTR development opportunities to serve the existing port tenants requires a newly established effectiveness of the state in relating with the Class I railroads. After interchanging cars with the CAGY at Metcalfe, the Canadian National Railroad is the sole connecting carrier at Greenwood. They do not currently offer local service from there directly to Baton Rouge and New Orleans. They haul local traffic north to Memphis, then place it on trains going south. This will not suffice as a viable alternative to barge shipments down the Mississippi River when water levels are low.

4)   Initiate the “State Rail Authority,” as Governor Reeves expressed in his recent annual address, and make rebuilding the GTR and the CAGY its central focus at the outset.

Numerous industries and local economies across central Mississippi will benefit from new rail-port service at the Port of Rosedale and the Port of Greenville as a result of rebuilding the Great River Railroad and the currently out-of-service sections of the Columbus and Greenville Railway. The candidates we have identified for further analysis are 1) the forest products industry, including new energy and alternative products; 2) other agricultural products and inputs; 3) the steel and aluminum industry centered in Columbus, MS; 4) prospects for industrial land development within each of the counties and towns along the GTR and CAGY; 5) current industrial prospects that the Mississippi Development Authority is fielding; 6) prospects that other economic developers across the state are fielding; 7) existing businesses in the state who might be interested in rail-barge service; 8) industrial supply chains for new energy and waste/scrap/residual streams, including logistically-advantaged siting of new gathering and processing facilities in the state; and 9) the contribution of lower environmental footprint rail transportation to the attractiveness of specific businesses, for instance, Eion that distributes a limestone-alternative, CO₂-absorbing soil amendment material that depends on carbon credit trading.

Spurred by the Governor’s commitment to a state rail authority, Mississippi’s economic development community’s collective participation in identifying, attracting, and landing new rail customers offers railroads an unprecedented business growth opportunity.  

This level of thinking about whole-state logistics and infrastructure investments undergirded the nation’s build-out of its rail network in the 19th century when there weren’t existing customers already in place. Substantial mineral deposits, coal, forests, and land were available for development, but it required a level of capital that could only be raised through collective action and foresight. Towns, states, the federal government, businesspeople, and investors collaborated to implement the possibilities. Mississippi can benefit mightily from embracing this multi-dimensional land, resource, and transportation development opportunity.

SRF can continue to advance all these opportunities and tasks if resourced and empowered by the state to co-lead the conceptualization and execution of the Governor’s vision toward a new age of rail-enabled economic development in Mississippi. Ultimate success in convening the multi-county, multi-entity collaboration requires the endorsement and backing of the Mississippi Development Authority and Governor Reeves. The Ports of Rosedale and Greenville, and SRF can provide terrific leadership. Still, we will need the Governor’s imprimatur to interact effectively with other state agencies, counties, economic development entities, major businesses in the state, and the railroads.