Mississippi's ports, big and small, are critical to state's success

Since March, when a massive cargo ship severed the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, resulting in the deaths of seven workers and a slowdown in ocean freight arriving in the U.S., this country’s port cities have been riding a mixture of good and bad news.

Usually when we encounter news about the ports system, it involves accidents like that one.

In Mississippi, general knowledge of our 17 seaport and riverport operations remains on the back burner when discussing the state’s economic development picture. There is no public clearinghouse to dispatch information on our ports system.

I tried with several ports-related groups to certify economic data I found on the ports system that showed it’s a $1.5 billion industry in Mississippi, employing 35,000 workers and paying some $800 million in wages.

No one, in a state bordered by the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi River, the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway and the Tennessee River, touching the state’s northeast corner, could back up that data. One had only economic data a decade old.

At any rate, the full-service, deepwater Port of Pascagoula is the state’s largest ocean harbor and ranks nationally in the top 20 ports in foreign cargo volume, with a location advantageous to shipping through the Gulf and Interstate Highway 10.

The Port of Gulfport and Port Bienville at Bay St. Louis are also key players in this system along the coastline, partnering in the industry with myriad river ports.

Another obvious feature of the Pascagoula harborage is as home to the state’s largest private employer, Ingalls Shipbuilding, a major supplier of American warships employing 11,000 workers, plus maritime enterprises like oceangoing oil-rig maker Halter Marine. Pascagoula often greets world leaders seeking to trade, build or buy ships.

Trent Lott of Pascagoula, the state’s longtime Republican U.S. senator, played a key role in helping to position the area high among the national marine industrial scene. Lott, 82, now one of the most powerful of Washington lobbyists, rose to the rank of Senate Majority Leader while in Congress from 1973-2007.

Willie Morris, the late and great Mississippi author and its keenest onlooker, wrote in his book “My Mississippi” of Lott’s power that “observers report that the nearest thing in 1999 to a state political machine in the tradition of the old (Theodore) Bilbo or the (U.S. Sen.) James Eastland-(Gov.) Paul Johnson is the GOP machine headed by Lott.”

As for state rivertown news, Vicksburg, our most important port on the Mississippi River due to myriad historical connections to the waterway, is spreading out through a major $15 million expansion.

The city’s high-energy and productive mayor, the erstwhile state legislative leader George Flaggs, said the rejuvenated port will be going after more international trade while continuing its major task of providing services for domestic river commerce.

“We’re looking for some big things to happen, and in fact, we have about three fish on the line now trying to get in and get on these 1,900 acres of land,” Flaggs, a skilled politician who’s often seen as a candidate for statewide office, told SuperTalk Media.

In the port business, it’s not always the largest cities that get big rewards. For example, the Port of Brunswick, Georgia, with a population (15,159) less than Vicksburg’s (21,573), is suddenly the nation’s busiest terminal for new automobiles made internationally, replacing former leader Baltimore in that role.

That’s called capitalizing on an unfortunate situation. It’s also called being smart, vigilant and visionary.

— Mac Gordon, a native of McComb, is a retired newspaperman. He can be reached at macmarygordon@gmail.com.