The Pine Bluff-Jefferson County Port Authority on Wednesday approved resolutions to review bids from companies seeking to manage the terminal facilities at the port, select the winning bid and execute an agreement with the winning bidder.
David Bush, chairman of the port authority board of directors, said during the meeting that since the original lease for operating the facilities is 20 years old, attorneys for the board have reviewed it and made changes to bring it up to date. The facilities are currently managed by Watco under a 10-year lease that will expire in the next few months. Caleb McMahon, director of Economic Development for the Economic Development Alliance for Jefferson County, said Watco has already obtained a bid package.
McMahon said two other groups have contacted him requesting bid packages and one of them has also requested a site visit. The bid packets are due by July 3.
In port-related business, Mike Murphy, terminal manager for Watco, said shipments into the port are ahead of figures for the same period in 2016, with more than 36,000 tons of products arriving, led by steel wire rod coils, which are used by Kiswire. Shipments into the port by rail are also up significantly from a year ago because of a new customer 3-D Corp Solutions of Dumas, which received more than 9,000 tons of commodities that are used in dog food manufactured in Dumas.
Regarding rail traffic, a major rehabilitation project to repair hundreds of feet of rail spurs in the port has been completed, and Murphy said that there was money left over from the grant awarded by the Arkansas Waterways Commission.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
“The tracks are in better shape now than they have been since 2003,” Murphy said. “It’s a first class project.”
Specifically, there was $21,468.74 that was not used from the grant, and 90 percent of that, or $19,321.87, will go back to the Arkansas Waterways Commission; the remaining $2,146.87 will go back to the port authority, which had to put up 10 percent of the money. Lou Ann Nisbett, president of the Alliance and Port Authority, reported that she had met with the chief marketing officer for Southwind Milling, Matt Gibson who told her the company is in the process of re-structuring .
“They’re developing a new road map and we hope to see them up and running in a few months,” she said.