North Carolina pushes for terminal feasibility study

The Wilmington District of the US Army Corps of Engineers has provided the State of North Carolina a draft analysis of the benefits and costs of the proposed North Carolina International Terminal at Southport, the News and Observer reported.

The Corps is seeking a letter of intent from the state to spend US$4.7 million on a feasibility study. The federal government would pay an additional $5 million.

The feasibility study would investigate spending $1.2 billion to dredge the Cape Fear River for larger ships to bring more products from China. The state would pay about half.

The benefits counted by the Corps include substantial transfer of container traffic from other ports, such as Charleston, Savannah and Norfolk. However, Section 904 of the Water Resources Development Act of 1986 restricts the analysis of benefits to those not involving the transfer of economic activity from other regions.

The Wilmington District of the Corps seems determined to have its study and to obtain state funds to do it regardless of that restriction.

(Source: www.schednet.com)