Port board declares InterMoor project complete; Berwick Bay dredging planned

One business is benefiting Tuesday from a Port of Morgan City project, and more will receive help from dredging in late August.
At Monday’s meeting, the port board voted to declare a $700,000 improvement project on port property leased by InterMoor to be substantially complete. Last-minute detail work remains to be done.
InterMoor offers methods for mooring offshore installations for oil companies and other maritime enterprises.
The improvement of the yard at the InterMoor site was financed with a grant from the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development. The grant paid for 90% of the work, and the port put up the remaining 10%.
The work came in $5,000 under budget and was finished earlier than expected, said Bryan Breaud of Providence Engineering.
InterMoor employs more than 100 people, port Executive Director Raymond “Mac” Wade said.
The other project with a direct impact on local businesses is dredging in Berwick Bay, especially on the Morgan City side where the build-up of sediment is a particular problem.
The dredge vessel Ingenuity, owned by Inland Dredging Co. LLC of Dyersburg, Tennessee, will go to work in Berwick Bay late this month, said Tim Connell of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The dredge will be available for 50-60 days, Connell said.
The dredging should help businesses along the waterfront that rely on access to the water.
Also Monday:
—The port board heard from Connell that bids will go out in the fall for dredging in the area near Crewboat Cut and mile 142, a key part of the bar channel that the port hopes ships will use on the way to and from the port.
The ideal would be to dredge the curve near Crewboat Cut to a depth of 22 feet and 400 feet wide. But the source of funding has yet to be identified.
—The port board agreed to spend about $2,200 on an appraisal of property adjoining the port with an eye on a possible purchase.
The land, which has served as the site of Eco Serv, would give the port additional waterfront of more than 900 feet.
—The new commander of the Coast Guard’s Marine Safety Unit Morgan City, Cmdr. Ben Russell, will take a look at how the Bayou Chene Flood Control Project might affect this region’s piece of a major salvage project.
Sections of the merchant vessel Golden Ray are expected to make their way through area St. Mary waterways, including Bayou Chene, on the way to Modern American Recycling Services Inc. on Bayou Black. MARS bills itself as “the largest barge dismantler and offshore decommissioning provider in the United States.”
The Golden Ray, a 656-foot cargo ship, was carrying more than 4,000 Hyundai and Kia cars in September when it turned over on its starboard side in St. Simons Sound, Georgia, according to media accounts.
Four of the vessel’s crew of 23 were trapped in the wreckage for more than 30 hours before being rescued unharmed.
The salvage work has been slowed by multiple fires, the environmental impact of leaking oil and now by a reluctance to move the large pieces on barges during the peak of hurricane season.
The work has also been hampered by a COVID-19 outbreak among salvage workers. Russell cited COVID as the reason the sections of the Golden Ray won’t be moving through the area in October as planned.
The $80 million Bayou Chene project, now under construction, will create a permanent flood gate that can be closed to prevent back-water flooding in the bayou when the Atchafalaya River runs high.