New St. Louis port ‘needed’

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New St. Louis port ‘needed’

The president of the Missouri Chamber of Commerce says new waterway infrastructure in the state would streamline U.S. ag exports.

“We should be the distribution and logistics center for not just the Midwest but for the country and the continent,” Dan Mehan said.

Mehan said a new port in the St. Louis area would make it a key logistics point for U.S. ag exports.

“There’s an idea to locate a port in Jefferson County right on the Mississippi River [with] access to all the rail and interstate system, and from that location, that container is a 12-hour ride to 44 percent of its market,” he said.

He said freight ships coming from the Panama Canal off-load their cargo onto smaller barges in the Gulf of Mexico, that move up the Mississippi River system unloading cargo containers…

“What do you do with those containers when you offload the product,” Mehan said. “The ideal thing is to fill them with something, like soybeans.”

Mehan participated in a panel discussion at Missouri Farm Bureau’s Annual Meeting covering infrastructure and supply chain resiliency.

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