Port of Beaumont Director and Chief Executive Officer Chris Fisher discusses the port's recent $26.4 million federal grant at a press conference Thursday. Photo taken Nov. 3, 2022. Photo by Olivia Malick/The Enterprise.  Photo by Olivia Malick/ The Enterprise

The Port of Beaumont just received its largest ever individual federal grant.

The port late last month announced that it was awarded $26.4 million through the U.S. Department of Transportation's Port Infrastructure Development Program.

Beaumont was one of 41 ports in the country to receive funding and received the largest portion in the state of the $703 million total awarded nationwide, said City Manager Kenneth Williams at a Thursday news conference.

"At the Port of Beaumont, we have a very aggressive grant application and comprehensive grant application program that we go after all of these grants that we can," said Port of Beaumont Director and Chief Executive Officer Chris Fisher. "It's very important, and it allows us to grow the public facilities at the Port of Beaumont."

The funding will go toward two projects to help bring a container on barge operation to life, according to a port news release.

One of the projects is the Lot 6 Barge Dock Strengthening Project, which includes construction of a relieving platform to strengthen an existing barge dock at the port. That will allow it to move containers via barge from Beaumont to Houston on a designated Marine Highway, the release said.

The second project is the Lot 14 Multi-purpose Container Marshalling Yard, which includes strengthening and hard-surfacing an existing 26.14-acre dirt lot that currently serves as one of the port's primary outdoor storage areas.

"A container on barge is a niche that we've been working to try to get into that's very environmentally friendly and we think it's going to be a very good diversification and this grant will allow us to make improvements to do that project and we're very very excited about it," Fisher said. 

Over the past five years, the port has received $61 million in funding, Fisher said.

"We apply to rigorous, very competitive programs," he said. "As part of the process, we rely on our local government officials to provide letters of support and support us and we did that and it was very supportive. But this year, Mayor (Robin) Mouton went above and beyond, having meetings with very high level (Department of Transportation) officials and that I think was very instrumental in us getting this grant."

Mayor Robin Mouton described the process in working to obtain the funding for Beaumont, recalling a roundtable discussion she organized in spring.

"At the time, (I) really did not realize where the focus (of the roundtable) would be, but I wanted to think outside of the box," she said. "I said in the very beginning of running for mayor that I was going to do everything possible to move Beaumont forward and in order to move Beaumont forward, I have to be forward thinking. So with that, I set up the roundtable meeting in early March while attending the African American Mayor's Conference in (Washington) D.C."

Mouton said she was invited for a second meeting at the Department of Transportation where she met with a senior advisor to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who then informed her that Beaumont was in the running to receive funding.

Mouton received a call from Buttigieg himself last week to inform her that Beaumont had been chosen. 

"Only 22 states were awarded this grant," she said. "(This) project is so needed (and) is going to create economic development here in Beaumont and also job creation."

The proposed container on barge operation has the potential to remove annually more than 17,000 vehicles from the Interstate 10 corridor between Beaumont and Houston, decrease vehicle miles travelled by 3,083,520 and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 4,800 metric tons, the news release said.

"Anytime you talk about economic development it's a good day," said Williams. "When I got here, one of the things I heard about was economic development and having partnerships like this is the way to get there. In the scope of public-private partnerships, we've got to get the private sector involved but it's important that we get to do that for our community. There are a lot of things tied to these dollars that benefit us economically."

olivia.malick@hearst.com