Amid fierce resident criticism over plans to build a grain terminal in Holy Cross, the New Orleans City Council is urging the state Legislature to study whether the project is in the neighborhood’s best interest.
The council on Thursday approved a resolution calling on state lawmakers to study Sunrise Foods International’s plan to open a terminal at the Alabo Street Wharf this summer. The Port of New Orleans, which approved the company’s plan, owns the wharf, and is a state agency.
“It’s disappointing that we have to be here today having this fight,” said City Council President JP Morrell, who added that there is “an unequal distribution of power between the Lower 9th Ward and the Port.”
The resolution, approved unanimously by council members, is an expression of the council’s opinion, and has no force of law. Yet it is a symbolic win for Holy Cross and Lower 9th Ward residents, who have been fighting against the terminal since the day they learned of plans to open it.
The council is urging the Legislature to study the concerns residents have raised over risks of grain dust that can cause respiratory illness and the potential for noise and safety hazards brought on by the daily trains that will be used to move the grain, per Sunrise’s plan to have the terminal operating by summer.
The council also wants a study of whether the project will attract rodents and other pests, and whether property values near the terminal would decline once it is operational.
Officials with Sunrise Foods said Thursday they are already working on a study of how the project would impact the surrounding neighborhood.
“As a tenant and operator at the Port of New Orleans’ Alabo Street Wharf we are currently completing an environmental assessment,” company officials said in a statement. “Findings and next steps will be shared with the public.”
It’s not clear what that review would cover, but the company says it should be ready by the end of January.
Holy Cross and Lower 9th Ward residents claim the Port should have done more to tell the public about the proposal before greenlighting it last year. Residents, as well as State Rep. Candace Newell and District E City Councilmember Oliver Thomas, first learned of the project when a Port official mentioned it at a small town hall meeting Newell hosted in the Bywater in September.
That was after the Port had already approved a lease with Sunrise Foods at a June board meeting.
Residents with the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association have since filed a lawsuit accusing Port officials of violating laws around transparency. The Port disputes those claims, and says it noticed its meeting properly before its vote on the matter.
Meanwhile, work continues along Alabo Street and St. Claude Avenue to return long-underutilized railroad tracks to daily use, which would be required under Sunrise’s plan. And also by the end of the month, Port officials are expected to issue $100 million in bonds that will, in part, be used to pay for upgrades to the Alabo facility.
Morrell cast the recent controversy as part of a long-standing practice by the Port of pushing to expand industrialization in the Holy Cross and Lower 9th Ward area, though he didn’t provide specifics.
“Every time we have that fight, every time we defeat that fight, it’s like they wait for just enough people to die or move to do it again,” he said. “When you see that kind of nefarious activity happening over and over again — and this is across different Port administrations and extensive periods of time — it’s like a vicious death knell drum beat.”
Port officials called Morrell’s comment “unfortunate” and said the Alabo Street Wharf has been part of the fabric of the Holy Cross neighborhood for more than a century.
“The Port of New Orleans has worked collaboratively across administrations and city councils in efforts to support international trade and economic development for our region and state,” officials said in a statement. “This project represents a transformative investment in the future of our region’s economy. Port NOLA has engaged with the community and complied with all applicable laws throughout this process and will continue to do so.”
Residents said Thursday a broader study into their concerns is needed. William Edwards lives just three blocks from the proposed terminal, and only a few feet from where a train will soon pass every weekday, under the Port’s plan.
On Thursday morning over breakfast, “I scooped my oatmeal, a grain, dumped it in the bowl, and for the first time, I saw this small cloud of dust on my kitchen counter,” he said. “It finally struck me what could happen if you take that small amount of dust and explode it by the size of a train car.
“My knees almost buckled and I almost passed out. I don’t know what to do.”