[MarignyBywater] Neighborhood opposition spurs Port of New Orleans to reconsider plans for Cold Storage facility

[nolarussell at bellsouth.net]

Neighborhood opposition spurs Port of New Orleans to reconsider plans for Cold Storage facilityby Jen DeGregorio, The Times-Picayune
Thursday July 23, 2009, 10:41 AMFacing mounting opposition to the construction of a poultryexporting operation at the foot of the French Market, the Port of NewOrleans is looking for a new home for New Orleans Cold Storage. 
Port administrators are asking tenants along theMississippi River if they could make room on their property for thecompany, which the port fears will leave New Orleans without a newheadquarters. New Orleans Cold Storage is the port's second-largestcustomer. 

"They've made it very clear that they're going to continue to opposethis, and we're going to see what the other alternatives are," portspokesman Chris Bonura said of residents in the French Quarter, Marignyand Bywater. Signs emblazoned with the message 'Poison Port' can beseen posted throughout the neighborhoods. 
There are no guarantees that the port will find another home for NewOrleans Cold Storage, Bonura said, and the company may very well end upon the Gov. Nicholls Street and Esplanade Avenue wharves as planned. 
But the fact that the port is even considering a new home for thecompany represents an aboutface for the agency, which just a few monthsago said that the wharves near the French Quarter were the only optionfor New Orleans Cold Storage. 
Port officials had surveyed several vacant port properties anddetermined those sites would be too expensive to redevelop or wereotherwise undesirable for the company's headquarters. 
But with protest against the project growing louder -- mainlysurrounding increased truck traffic and the use of ammonia in thefacility -- the port agreed to consider other options. 
"We're opening up our review of sites to look at sites that arecurrently leased," Bonura said. "We've talked to some terminaloperators and said, 'Do you have some additional room that may be ableto accomodate this?'" 
Currently located along the Industrial Canal, New Orleans ColdStorage has had trouble moving its ships through the channel sinceHurricane Katrina. The lock that connects the canal with the river istoo small to fit many of the company's ships, and the only other entryto the canal, the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, has been closed by theArmy Corps of Engineers. 
In February, the administration of Gov. Bobby Jindal pledged $20million in hurricane recovery money to build the company's newheadquarters, roughly half the cost of the project. Bonura said he did not know if that money has been transferred to the port. 
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